A**  TV/ 
W 

\J.  W» 


I 


LIBRARY 

'UNIVERSITY  OF 
CAUFORN1A 

i      SAN  DIEQO 


., 


THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS 


CAPTAIN    DREYFUS. 


THE   TRAGEDY    OF 
DREYFUS. 


BY 


G.  W.    STEEVENS 

AUTHOR   OF 
"WITH  KITCHENER  TO  KHARTUM,"   ETC.,    ETC. 


WITH    PORTRAIT    AND    APPENDIX.i 


LONDON  AND   NEW  YORK: 

HARPER    AND     BROTHERS 

45,  ALBEMARLE  STREET. 
1899. 


Copyright,  1899,  by  HARPER  &  BROTHERS 


All  rights  reserved. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CASE  .         .         .         i 

II.  How  DREYFUS  CAME  TO  RENNES         .       25 

III.  ON  THE  EVE 53 

IV.  DREYFUS  ......       62 

V.  MERCIER  ......       73 

VI.  A  SHOT  IN  THE  STREET     ...       86 

VII.  ROGET      ......     101 

VIII.  PlCQUART               .             .             .             .             .122 

IX.  THE  ALSATIANS          .         .         .         .138 

X.  THE  COURT  AND  THE  CASE        .         .     148 

XL  LABORI     ......     159 

XII.  His  COMRADES  UPON  DREYFUS    .         .168 

XIII.  ESTERHAZY  .  .  .  .  .185 

XIV.  A  DRAWN  BATTLE  AND  A  ROUT           .     196 


vi  CONTENTS. 


PAGE 


CHAPTER  212 

XV.     THE  EXPERTS   . 

227 

XVI.  THE  CONFESSION 

XVII.  THE  DEFENCE  . 

XVIII.  DEMANGE 

XIX.  "GUILTY!" 

XX.  FRANCE  AFTER  DREYFUS     . 

•*oo 
APPENDIX 


I  HAVE  to  thank  the  Publishers  of  this  book  for 
enriching  it  with  an  Appendix,  whereby  the  history 
of  the  Dreyfus  case  may  be  followed  in  official 

documents. 

G.  W.  S. 


THE 

TRAGEDY   OF    DREYFUS. 


i. 

THE  STORY  OF  THE  CASE. 

IN  1894  there  was  attached  to  the  General 
Staff  of  the  French  Army  a  captain  of 
artillery  named  Alfred  Dreyfus.  He  be- 
longed to  a  Jewish  family  of  Miihlhausen, 
in  Alsace — a  family  which  has  distinguished 
itself  since  the  annexation  by  its  attachment 
to  France.  Two  of  his  three  brothers,  like 
himself,  opted  in  1872  for  French  nationality  ; 
the  eldest  remained  at  Miihlhausen  to  manage 
the  family  factories ;  but  after  sending  his 
six  sons  successively  to  France,  he  also 
retired  from  business  in  1897,  and  finally 
became  naturalised  as  a  Frenchman.  Alfred 
Dreyfus  was,  in  1894,  thirty-five  years  old. 
He  had  the  reputation  of  a  very  industrious 

B 


2       THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

and  intelligent  officer ;  but  his  demeanour 
oscillated  between  complaisance  and  osten- 
tation, and  he  was  not  popular  among  his 
comrades. 

In  September  of  that  year  a  secret  agent 
brought  a  document  to  Major  Henry,  sub- 
chief  of  the  Intelligence  Department  of  the 
War  Office ;  it  was  torn  into  little  pieces, 
and  was  said  to  have  been  taken  from  the 
overcoat  pocket  of  Colonel  Schwarzkoppen, 
the  German  Military  Attache  in  Paris. 
When  pieced  together  it  proved  to  be  a 
bordereau,  or  covering  letter,  and  ran  as 
follows  :— 

Though  I  have  no  news  indicating  that  you  wish  to  see 
me,  I  send  you,  monsieur,  some  interesting  information : — 

(1)  A  note  on  the  hydraulic  brake  of  the  120,*  and 

the  way  in  which  this  piece  has  behaved. 

(2)  A  note  on  the  covering  troops  t  (some  modifica- 

tions will  be  introduced  by  the  new  plan). 

(3)  A  note  on  a  modification  in  artillery  formations. 

(4)  A  note  on  Madagascar. 

(5)  The  projected  firing-manual   for  field  artillery 

(March  14,  1894). 

*  i.e.  The  izo-millimetre  gun.  There  are  two  pieces  of 
this  calibre  m  the  French  Army— the  long  and  the  short 

t  A  sort  of  frontier  force  kept  always  equipped  with  a  view 
to  cover  and  protect  the  detraining  and  formation  of  armies 
during  the  early  hours  of  a  war. 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  CASE.         3 

This  last  document  is  very  difficult  to  get,  and  I  can 
only  have  it  at  my  disposal  for  a  very  few  days.  The 
Ministry  of  War  has  sent  a  limited  number  of  copies  to 
the  various  corps,  and  these  corps  are  responsible  for 
them ;  each  officer  in  possession  of  one  must  give  it  up 
after  the  manoeuvres.  If,  therefore,  you  wish  to  take 
from  it  what  interests  you,  and  hold  it  at  my  disposal 
afterwards,  I  will  take  it,  unless  you  would  like  me  to  have 
a  copy  made  of  it  in  extenso  and  send  the  copy  to  you. 

I  am  just  starting  for  the  manoeuvres. 

It  appeared  from  the  last  words  that  the 
writer  of  this  letter  was  a  French  officer  ;  it 
was  inferred  that  he  was  also  a  gunner,  and 
on  the  General  Staff.  Specimens  were  taken 
of  the  various  officers'  handwriting,  and  it 
was  decided  that  Dreyfus  was  the  man. 
M.  Bertillon,  the  well-known  head  of  the 
Criminal  Identification  Bureau  in  Paris,  con- 
curred. The  inquiry  into  the  case  was  com- 
mitted to  Major  Du  Paty  de  Clam.  On 
October  i5th,  having  sent  for  Dreyfus,  he 
ordered  him  to  write  from  dictation  a  letter 
containing  phrases  used  in  the  bordereau. 
After  writing  a  few  lines,  says  Du  Paty,  he 
turned  pale  and  his  hand  trembled.  Im- 
mediately he  was  arrested  and  taken  to  the 
Cherche-Midi  prison.  Major  Forzinetti,  com- 
mandant of  the  Paris  military  prisons,  was 

B  2 


4      THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

waiting  there,  and  Dreyfus  was  immured  au 
secret — that  is,  without  the  possibility  of  com- 
municating with  anyone  but  the  chief  warder. 
He  remained  au  secret  until  December  5th. 
Major  Du  Paty  de  Clam  came  almost  every 
day,  under  a  special  authorization  from  the 
Minister  of  War,  General  Mercier,  to  induce 
the  prisoner  to  confess.  One  of  his  inspira- 
tions was  to  creep  noiselessly  into  the  cell 
and  then  suddenly  flash  a  strong  light  on  to 
the  prisoner's  face — to  see  if  he  looked  guilty  ! 
All  this  time  Dreyfus,  according  to  Major 
Forzinetti,  was  terribly  agitated ;  from  the 
corridor  he  could  be  heard  to  cry  and  groan  ; 
he  flung  himself  upon  the  furniture  and 
against  the  walls  ;  he  took  nothing  but  broth 
and  sweetened  wine;  he  never  undressed. 
Yet  all  the  time  he  protested  his  innocence. 
On  November  ist  the  Libre  Parole,  in- 
formed apparently  by  Major  Henry,  an- 
nounced Dreyfus's  arrest,  and  attacked 
General  Mercier  savagely  for  an  alleged 
wish  to  screen  him.  On  November  28th, 
ten  days  before  his  trial,  Mercier  made  a 
communication  to  a  newspaper  stating  that 
"the  guilt  of  this  officer  is  absolutely  certain." 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  CASE.         5 

He  was  brought  before  a  court-martial  on 
December  iQth.  The  trial  was  held  behind 
closed  doors ;  he  was  found  guilty  and 
sentenced  to  public  degradation  from  his 
rank  and  to  solitary  confinement  for  life. 
The  first  part  of  the  sentence  was  carried 
out  on  January  5th,  1895.  In  the  presence 
of  a  large  body  of  troops  and  correspondents 
of  the  press,  the  galloons  were  torn  from  his 
kepi,  the  trefoils  from  his  sleeves,  the  buttons 
from  his  tunic,  the  numbers  from  his  collar 
and  the  stripes  from  his  trousers  ;  his  sword 
was  broken,  and  the  scabbard  thrown  to  the 
ground.  In  this  state  he  passed  before  the 
men  under  his  command.  He  went  through 
the  ordeal  with  dignity  and  firmness,  though 
to  French  onlookers  his  bearing  seemed 
mechanical.  In  a  loud  voice  he  again  and 
again  proclaimed  his  innocence  ;  but  he  used 
words  to  Captain  Lebrun- Renault,  who  was 
on  guard  over  him,  which  that  officer  inter- 
preted as  a  confession.  He  was  taken  back 
to  prison ;  a  month  later  the  Chamber  of 
Deputies  made  a  special  law  authorizing  his 
deportation  to  the  He  du  Diable,  off  the 
coast  of  French  Guiana.  Thither,  still  pro- 


6      THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

testing  his  innocence  even  in  his  sleep,  he 
was  deported. 

That,  until  a  few  months  ago,  was  all 
Dreyfus  knew  of  the  Dreyfus  case. 

Nothing  happened  for  a  year.  But  in  the 
month  of  May,  1896,  there  appeared  in  the 
Intelligence  Department,  where  Lieutenant- 
Colonel  Picquart  had  lately  succeeded  Colonel 
Sandherr  as  head,  a  petit  bleu  or  express 
letter-card.  It  came,  according  to  Colonel 
Picquart,  from  the  German  Embassy,  as  the 
bordereau  did  ;  it  was  torn,  just  like  the 
bordereau,  into  little  pieces ;  it  was  pieced 
together  again,  like  it,  and  was  found  to  bear 
the  name  and  address  of  Major  Esterhazy. 
The  card  had  not  been  through  the  post, 
was  not  apparently  in  the  handwriting  of 
Colonel  Schwarzkoppen,  and  its  purport, 
while  suspicious,  was  not  in  itself  demon- 
strative of  treachery.  Colonel  Picquart  began 
to  make  inquiries  about  Major  Esterhazy. 
He  turned  out  to  have  led  something  of 
a  life  of  a  soldier  of  fortune— had  seen 
fighting  with  the  Austrian  Army  and  the 
Papal  forces  as  well  as  the  French. 
Brought  up  in  Vienna,  he  knew  German 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  CASE.         7 

perfectly,  Italian  well ;  he  was  of  an  ex- 
ceedingly quick  and  lively  intelligence,  and 
curious  of  all  military  information.  His  life 
was  irregular  and  dissipated.  A  secret  agent 
had  warned  Picquart  that  documents  on 
artillery  were  being  betrayed  by  an  officer 
answering  more  or  less  to  Esterhazy's  de- 
scription, and  these  documents  answered 
more  or  less  to  matters  on  which  Esterhazy 
had  asked  brother-officers  for  information. 
Picquart  next  took  specimens  of  Esterhazy's 
handwriting,  and  thought  he  detected  in 
them  a  striking  resemblance  to  that  of  the 
bordereau.  He  showed  them  to  Bertillon  and 
Du  Paty  de  Clam,  who  were  in  a  position  to 
know  the  bordereau  better  than  anybody,  and 
both  bore  him  out.  Finally,  Picquart  looked 
into  the  secret  dossier  of  the  Dreyfus  case, 
which  was  preserved  in  the  Intelligence 
Department.  He  concluded  that  the  most 
significant  of  the  rather  vague  documents  it 
contained  would  apply  just  as  well  to  Ester- 
hazy  as  to  Dreyfus.  As  long  as  it  had  been 
merely  a  question  of  evidence  against  Ester- 
hazy,  Picquart's  superiors  on  the  General 
Staff,  Generals  de  Boisdeffre  and  Gonse,  had 


8      THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

encouraged  him  in  his  investigations.  But 
now,  as  soon  as  they  detected  his  intention 
of  substituting  Esterhazy  for  Dreyfus  as  the 
traitor  of  1894,  they  began  to  check 

him. 

Meanwhile  the  friends  of  Dreyfus  were 
beginning  to  assert  his  innocence  and  agitate 
for  a  new  trial.  On  September  I4th  a  Paris 
newspaper  stated  that  at  the  court-martial  a 
secret  document  had  been  shown  to  the  judges 
and  not  to  the  prisoner  or  the  defence — an 
illegality  which  would  be  sufficient  to  upset 
the  verdict.  Madame  Dreyfus  immediately 
petitioned  for  a  revision  of  the  case.  Next, 
on  the  loth  November,  another  paper  pub- 
lished a  facsimile  of  the  bordereau,  and  the 
growing  party  of  Dreyfusards  set  about  to 
prove  graphologically  that  it  was  not  from 
his  hand.  On  the  i8th  November,  however, 
any  hopes  they  may  have  had  of  official 
countenance  were  destroyed.  General  Billot, 
who  had  succeeded  Mercier  as  War  Minister, 
pronounced  in  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  that 
Dreyfus  had  been  justly  and  legally  con- 
demned. 

From  that  pronouncement  it  was  impossible 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  CASE.        9 

to  go  back.     The  War  Office  was  pledged 
henceforth  to  the  guilt  of  Dreyfus,  and  the 
open  fight  for  the  revision  of  his  trial  began. 
Picquart,  who  had  declared  himself  against 
his  superiors  on  the  question,  was  removed 
from    the     Intelligence    Department — where 
he  was  succeeded  by  Henry,  now  Lieutenant- 
Colonel  --  and    sent   on   a   mission    to    the 
frontier   of    Tripoli  --on    the    mission,    he 
suggests,   of  Uriah  the   Hittite.     He  there 
received    an    abusive    letter     from     Henry 
making    three    charges     against     him  :     of 
opening    Esterhazy's  letters  in  the  post,  of 
attempting    to    suborn    Major    Lauth    and 
Captain  Junck  of  the    Intelligence   Depart- 
ment to   allege   that  the  petit  bleu  was   in 
Schwarzkoppen's  hand,  and  of  opening  and 
improperly  using  the  secret  dossier.    Picquart, 
feeling  that  his  junior  in  rank  would  hardly 
write  thus  if  unsupported  by  higher  powers, 
seized   an  opportunity  to  return  to  Paris  in 
June,  1897,  and  laid  his  case  before  a  lawyer, 
Maitre    Leblois.       In     September     Leblois 
communicated  what   Picquart  had  told  him 
to    M.   Scheurer-Kestner,  Vice- President  of 
the    Senate,    who    vainly    tried    to    induce 


io    THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

General  Billot  to  open  a  fresh  inquiry 
into  the  case  of  Dreyfus.  In  the  end 
of  October  M.  de  Castro,  Esterhazy's 
stockbroker,  bought  a  facsimile  of  the 
bordereau  and  recognised  it  as  Ester- 
hazy's handwriting.  He  communicated 
with  Scheurer-Kestner,  who  was  in  com- 
munication with  Dreyfus's  brother.  On 
November  I5th  M.  Mathieu  Dreyfus  pub- 
lished an  open  letter,  flatly  accusing 
Esterhazy  of  being  the  author  of  the 
bordereau  and  of  the  treasonable  corre- 
spondence it  disclosed. 

This  was  the  first  time  Esterhazy's  name 
had  been  published,  and  General  de  Pellieux 
was  instructed  to  inquire  into  the  charges 
made  against  him.  From  that  moment  the 
history  of  the  Dreyfus  case  is  the  history  of 
France.  The  battle  for  and  against  Dreyfus 
went  on  with  ever-increasing  savagery.  It 
engrossed  the  whole  of  politics  and  spread 
chaos  into  every  province  of  private  life. 
The  French  press,  never  distinguished  for 
moderation  in  controversy,  became  violent 
and  malignant  beyond  all  parallel.  No 
abuse  was  too  foul  or  too  absurd  to  be 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  CASE.       u 

showered  on  somebody  who  thought 
differently  about  Dreyfus.  The  Jews,  of 
course,  were  fair  game.  In  a  score  of  towns 
there  were  anti-Semitic  riots  ;  a  boy  named 
Max  Regis  made  himself  Mayor  of  Algiers 
solely  on  the  strength  of  inciting  to  loot 
Jewish  ships.  The  army,  on  the  other  hand, 
was  daily  held  up  to  ridicule  and  hatred. 
The  lines  of  party  vanished,  and  men  who 
had  been  friends  for  half  a  generation  now 
cut  one  another.  I  knew  myself  two  young 
men  of  letters  in  Paris  ;  one  of  them,  as  is 
usual  in  that  hive  of  movements,  constituted 
the  school  of  the  other.  They  were  sincerely 
attached  ;  only,  unluckily,  the  disciple  was  a 
clerk  of  the  War  Office,  and  the  master  was 
a  Jew.  They  began  by  hot  argument,  and 
then  cooled  to  sulkiness.  One  day  the 
younger  man  went  to  the  elder  for  a  final 
attempt  at  reconciliation — and  saw  a  photo- 
graph of  Dreyfus  on  the  mantelpiece.  It 
was  all  over  ;  now  they  do  not  speak.  It 
was  not  that  the  one  wished  to  torment 
Dreyfus  or  that  the  other  was  particularly 
anxious  for  his  release.  Dreyfus  had  become 
a  symbol — a  dogma.  The  bitterness  his  case 


12     THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

aroused  transcends  political  animosity,  and 
can  only  be  rivalled  from  the  history  of 
religion. 

The  Esterhazy  Court- Martial  was  led  up 
to  through  a  maze  of  intrigues  which  read  half 
li^e  a  novel  of  Gaboriau's  and  half  like  a 
burlesque  opera.  Esterhazy's  story,  which 
is  the  more  spirited  of  the  two,  was  that 
he  became  aware,  through  a  letter  signed 
Esperance,  of  Picquart's  machinations  against 
him.  He  hastened  forthwith  to  the  Minister 
of  War  and  demanded  an  inquiry.  Soon 
after  that  he  received  a  telegram  making  an 
appointment  for  a  midnight  interview  on  the 
Pont  Alexander  III.  He  went,  and  found  a 
veiled  lady  :  she  made  him  give  his  word  of 
honour  not  to  try  to  recognise  her,  and  then 
acquainted  him  with  Picquart's  machinations 
against  him. 

Afterwards  followed  similar  interviews, 
in  the  course  of  one  of  which  the  mysterious 
veiled  lady  gave  him  a  sealed  letter  with  the 
words  "This  document  proves  your  inno- 
cence." The  idea  was  that  it  was  a 
photograph  of  one  of  the  secret  documents 
shown  to  the  Judges  of  the  Dreyfus  Court- 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  CASE.   13 

Martial ;  that  Henry  had  one  day  in  the 
Intelligence  Department  seen  Picquart  show- 
ing the  secret  dossier  to  Maitre  Leblois, 
and  that  this  photograph  had  slipped  out ; 
that  Picquart  had  stolen  it  and  kept  it 
over  a  year ;  that  his  mistress,  who  was  no 
other  than  the  veiled  lady,  had  heard  him 
talking  in  his  sleep  of  it  and  of  his  plots 
against  Esterhazy,  and,  pitying  the  innocent, 
had  taken  the  photograph  and  given  it  back 
to  Esterhazy  as  a  hold  on  the  War  Office. 
Thither  Esterhazy  duly  returned  it  in 
November  1897,  and  General  Billot  formally 
acknowledged  its  receipt.  As  for  the 
bordereau,  Esterhazy's  explanation  of  its 
correspondence  with  his  handwriting  was 
very  simple.  Dreyfus  had  procured  speci- 
mens of  his  hand  by  writing  under  the  name 
of  a  Captain  Brault  for  information  on  a 
professional  topic,  and  had  then  traced  the 
bordereau  over  selections  from  Esterhazy's 
answer. 

Picquart  on  his  side  had  a  tale  of  machina- 
tions to  tell.  In  Tunis  he  had  received  a 
letter  of  remonstrance  from  Esterhazy,  and 
on  the  same  day  two  telegrams  signed 


14    THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

respectively  Speranza  and  Blanche  •  both 
implied  that  his  friends  knew  him  to  be 
the  forger  of  the  petit  bleu  addressed  to 
Esterhazy.  He  asserted  that  these,  together 
with  a  letter  signed  Speranza  which  had  been 
addressed  to  him  at  the  War  Office  after  he 
left,  opened  and  preserved,  were  forgeries 
based  on  intercepted  genuine  letters  of 
his  friends,  intended  to  ruin  him,  and 
perpetrated  by  Esterhazy  and  Du  Paty  de 
Clam. 

Both  stories  were  wild  enough.  Ester- 
hazy's,  however,  was  believed  by  the  Court- 
Martial,  which,  on  January  nth,  1898, 
acquitted  him.  Picquart's  story,  on  the  other 
hand,  was  believed  by  Judge  Bertulus,  before 
whom  he  brought  an  action  for  forgery 
against  Esterhazy  and  Mdlle.  Pays,  his 
mistress,  and  Du  Paty  de  Clam.  Nor 
is  it  now  denied  by  the  strongest  Anti- 
Dreyfusard — least  of  all  by  Esterhazy  him- 
self—that this  whole  story  of  the  veiled 
lady  and  of  Dreyfus's  trick  to  get  Ester- 
hazy's  writing  was  a  fiction  concocted  by 
this  same  trio  with  the  aid  of  Henry. 
For  the  time,  though,  it  served.  And 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  CASE.       15 

on  the  day  of  Esterhazy's  acquittal  Pic- 
quart  was  arrested  on  the  charge  of 
communicating  professional  documents  to 
Leblois  and  conveyed  to  the  prison  of  Mont 
Valerien. 

Two  days  later  Zola  published  his  famous 
letter  "  J' accuse"  Du  Paty  de  Clam, 
Mercier,  Billot,  Boisdeffre  and  Gonse,  de 
Pellieux,  Major  Ravary  (the  official  prosecutor 
of  Esterhazy),  the  experts  in  handwriting  who 
had  pronounced  for  the  War  Office,  the  War 
Office  itself,  the  Judges  of  the  Court-Martial 
who  had  condemned  Dreyfus  and  acquitted 
Esterhazy — all  were  violently  accused  of 
knavery  or  folly  or  both.  Zola  was  prose- 
cuted before  a  Civil  jury ;  but  the  War 
Minister  confined  the  inquiry  to  the  charge 
against  the  Esterhazy  Court-Martial  of 
having  acquitted  the  accused  to  order.  The 
case  opened  on  February  yth,  and  at  first 
seemed  to  be  going  in  Zola's  favour.  His 
counsel — a  hitherto  obscure  lawyer  named 
Labori — fought  the  case  with  audacity  and 
resource.  But  on  the  iyth  General  de 
Pellieux  came  forward  to  the  bar  of 
the  court  and  read  the  following  letter 


1 6     THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

from    the    secret    dossier    of     the    Dreyfus 
case : — 

MY  DEAR  FRIEND, 

I  have  read  that  a  deputy  is  going  to  make  an 
interpellation  on  Dreyfus.  If  ...  [an  illegible  gap 
here]  ...  I  shall  say  that  I  never  had  no  relations 
with  the  Jew.  That  is  understood.  If  as  you  are 
asked,  say  like  that,  for  nobody  must  not  ever  know 
what  happened  with  him. 

ALEXANDRINE.* 

The  jury  were  given  to  understand  that 
this  letter  had  been  intercepted  between 
Colonel  von  Schwarzkoppen  and  the  Italian 
military  attach6,  Colonel  Panizzardi. 

That  decided  it.  Zola  was  condemned, 
but  he  appealed  on  technical  grounds  and 
the  sentence  was  quashed  by  the  Cour  de 
Cassation,  the  highest  appeal  court  of  France. 
After  some  hesitation,  a  second  prosecution 
was  decided  on,  the  ground  of  action  this 
time  being  narrowed  down  to  three  lines  ot 
Zola's  letter  which  confined  the  issue  still 
more  closely  to  the  Esterhazy  Court-Martial. 
This  second  trial  was  held  at  Versailles  on 


*  The  English  of  this  translation  corresponds  with  the 
French  of  the  original,  which  is  grossly  ungrammatical. 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  CASE.       17 

July  1 8th  and  the  succeeding  days.  Maltre 
Labori  unsuccessfully  put  in  several  technical 
pleas,  the  most  important  being  that,  on  the 
grounds  of  the  connection  between  the  three 
lines  and  the  rest  of  the  letter,  the  defence 
ought  to  be  allowed  to  justify  the  letter  in  its 
entirety.  When  this  plea  was  disallowed 
the  defence  threw  up  the  case,  and  Zola, 
condemned  by  default,  fled  the  country. 

The  excitement  in  every  class  was 
enormous,  though  the  triumph  of  the  Anti- 
Dreyfusards  seemed  complete.  But  already, 
on  July  yth,  M.  Cavaignac,  who  had  succeeded 
Billot  as  Minister  of  War,  had  made  an 
important  speech  in  the  Chamber,  which  led 
up  to  the  most  violently  dramatic  act  in  the 
whole  story  of  the  case.  Cavaignac,  as  a 
private  deputy,  had  blamed  Billot  for  not 
demonstrating  to  the  country  the  guilt  of 
Dreyfus,  and  so  setting  the  pernicious  agita- 
tion for  ever  to  rest.  In  his  speech  of  July 
yth  he  read  out  as  links  in  a  chain  of  corre- 
spondence between  Schwarzkoppen  and 
Panizzardi,  three  letters,  including  the  one 
given  above.  He  also  insisted  on  the 
Lebrun-Renault  confession,  which  had  been 

c 


1 8     THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

first  made  public  late  in  1897.  For  the 
moment  Cavaignac  enjoyed  a  wild  ovation. 
By  572  votes  to  2  the  Chamber  decided  that 
this  speech  should  be  posted  up  on  the  walls 
of  all  the  communes  of  France.  Two  days 
later  Picquart — who  had  been  expelled  the 
army  after  giving  evidence  in  the  first  Zola 
trial — wrote  an  open  letter  to  the  Premier 
offering  to  prove  that  two  of  the  letters 
quoted  by  M.  Cavaignac  did  not  refer  to 
Dreyfus,  while  the  third  was  a  forgery. 
Cavaignac  countered  by  ordering  a  civil 
action  against  him  and  Leblois  for  divulging 
military  secrets.  Three  days  later  still, 
Maitre  Demange,  who  had  been  Dreyfus's 
advocate  at  the  first  court-martial,  made 
public  the  fact  that  none  of  the  documents 
read  had  been  communicated  either  to  the 
prisoner  or  to  himself. 

Six  weeks  later,  on  August  3Oth,  came 
the  startling  news  that  the  document  mention- 
ing Dreyfus  had  been  forged  by  Colonel 
Henry,  that  he  had  confessed,  and  had  cut 
his  throat  in  prison.  It  was  officially  stated 
that  General  Roget,  an  officer  on  the  War 
Office  Staff,  had  detected  the  fraud  ;  after- 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  CASE.       19 

wards  Captain,  now  Major,  Cuignet  claimed 
the  discovery.  He  was  working  at  night, 
he  said,  classifying  the  Dreyfus  dossier  for 
M.  Cavaignac,  when  he  noticed  that  the 
letter — which  had  been  torn  and  gummed 
together — was  in  two  parts.  The  cross- 
ruling  of  the  heading  "  My  dear  friend"  and 
the  signature  "Alexandrine"  was  blue-grey, 
that  of  the  body  of  the  letter  violet-red. 
Turning  to  another  genuine  document  from 
the  reputed  author  of  the  first,  he  found 
that  the  heading  and  signature  were  cross- 
ruled  violet-red,  and  the  body  of  the  letter 
blue-grey.  The  conclusion  was  obvious  : 
the  first  letter  naming  Dreyfus  had  been 
written  by  Henry,  who  had  cut  off  the 
heading  and  signature  of  the  genuine  letter 
and  had  replaced  them  by  his  own  imitations. 
The  document  had  never  been  examined  by 
lamplight  before,  and  this,  according  to 
Cuignet,  explains  both  Henry's  blunder  and 
his  own  discovery.  Cavaignac  charged 
Henry  with  the  forgery ;  for  a  long  time  he 
denied  it,  but  the  evidence  of  the  two  colours 
in  the  paper  was  irrefutable.  It  is  believed 
he  was  assisted  by  an  ex-policeman  named 

c  2 


20     THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

Lemercier-Picard,  who  had  committed  and 
sold  other  forgeries  bearing  on  the  Dreyfus 
case,  had  been  arrested,  and  was  found 
strangled  in  prison.  Henry  was  arrested 
and  taken  to  the  military  prison  of  Mont 
Valerien.  On  the  way  he  cried,  "  What  I 
did,  I  am  ready  to  do  again.  It  was  for  the 
good  of  the  country  and  of  the  army."  But 
he  had  a  long  interview  with  an  unknown 
officer  in  his  cell,  and  immediately  after  was 
found  with  his  throat  cut  twice  across  and  the 
razor  beside  him.  Whether  it  was  murder 
or  suicide  did  not  appear.  The  best  judges 
believe  he  resolved,  with  a  frugal  heroism 
most  characteristic  of  France,  to  die  a  lieu- 
tenant-colonel so  as  to  ensure  his  widow  a 
full  pension. 

After  this  tremendous  event  the  cause 
of  the  Anti  -  Dreyfusards  was  for  the 
moment  hopeless.  Cavaignac  and  General 
de  Boisdeffre,  Chief  of  the  General  Staff, 
resigned.  Du  Paty  de  Clam  and  Esterhazy 
were  retired  from  the  army.  Finally,  on 
September  24th,  the  Cour  de  Cassation  was 
entrusted  with  the  revision  of  the  Dreyfus 
Court-Martial. 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  CASE.       21 

General  Zurlinden,  the  new  Minister  of 
War,  resigned  at  this  decision.  In  October 
General  Chanoine,  his  successor,  who  must 
have  known  what  he  was  doing  when  he 
took  office,  stood  up  to  defend  his  colleagues 
in  a  critical  debate,  suddenly  turned  and 
attacked  them,  and  resigned  from  the  very 
tribune.  Before  this,  on  September  2ist, 
Picquart  had  again  been  imprisoned — this 
time  au  secret,  just  as  Dreyfus  had  been — on 
the  charge  of  having  scratched  out  the  name 
of  the  real  addressee  of  the  now  classical 
express  letter-card  and  substituted  Esterhazy's 
instead.  This  change  had  actually  been 
made  on  the  card — Esterhazy's  name  being 
first  scratched  out  then  re-written  in  a 
different  ink.  Picquart  declared  this  one 
more  perfidious  machination  to  stop  his 
mouth.  His  surrender  was  demanded  in  the 
name  of  the  Military  Governor  of  Paris  (Zur- 
linden) just  as  the  civil  action  against  him 
was  about  to  begin.  The  Court  was  unable 
to  resist  the  demand,  but  before  he  was 
handed  over  Picquart  asked  leave  to  speak. 
"  This  evening,  probably,"  he  said,  "  I  shall 
go  to  the  Cherche-Midi,  and  now  will  be  the 


22     THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

last  time  I  can  say  a  word  in  public.  If 
there  is  found  in  my  cell  the  rope  of 
Lemercier-Picard  or  the  razor  of  Henry, 
then  I  shall  have  been  assassinated.  Men 
like  me  do  not  commit  suicide." 

The  Criminal  Chamber  of  the  Cour  de 
Cassation  began  the  hearing  of  witnesses 
on  November  8th,  1898,  and  went  on  until 
February  2nd.  By  a  desperate  effort  the 
Anti-Dreyfusards  pushed  through  a  law  trans- 
ferring the  case  from  the  Criminal  Chamber 
of  the  Court  to  the  whole  body  of  it,  which 
they  expected  to  be  more  on  their  side.  The 
united  chambers  heard  more  evidence  between 
April  24th  and  29th.  Altogether  over  eighty 
witnesses  were  heard  before  the  Court  in 
Paris,  many  of  them  at  vast  length.  General 
Roget  admits  he  alone  spoke  for  forty-seven 
hours.  Delegations,  sub-delegations,  and 
rogatory  commissions  scoured  France  for 
evidence.  Letters,  reports,  extracts  from 
dossiers  were  put  in  by  the  ream.  The  Court 
took  note  of  the  depositions  before  the  first 
Dreyfus  Court- Martial,  and  those  in  Picquart's 
action  against  Esterhazy,  Pays,  and  Du  Paty. 
Dreyfus  himself  was  examined  at  the  Devil's 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  CASE.       23 

Island.  In  short,  the  whole  case  was  thrashed 
out  as  fine  as  the  law  of  France  could 
thrash  it. 

The  proceedings  make  up  1,168  pages. 
There  is  no  need  even  to  summarise  them, 
since  everything  has  been  repeated — in  some 
cases  almost  textually,  in  the  case  of  absent 
witnesses  altogether  textually — before  the 
Court-Martial  at  Rennes.  The  important 
fact  is  that  on  May  27th  the  Court  quashed 
the  conviction  of  1894,  anc^  ordered  a  new 
trial  of  the  case  before  the  Court- Martial  of 
Rennes.  The  Court  could,  had  it  chosen, 
have  declared  Dreyfus  innocent,  but  it  pre- 
ferred to  give  him  back  to  military  justice. 
The  grounds  of  the  quashing  of  the  verdict 
of  1894 — and  they  are  important  as  the  chief 
points  for  the  consideration  of  the  Rennes 
Court-Martial — were  the  following  :— 

(1)  The  Henry  forgery. 

(2)  Incorrect  date  ascribed  to  the  bordereau. 

(3)  Contradiction  between  the  opinions  of  the  experts 
in  the  Dreyfus  case  of  '94  and  the  Esterhazy  case  of  '98. 

(4)  Identity  of  the  thin  paper  of  "the  bordereau  with 
that  used  by  Esterhazy. 

(5)  Letter  of  Esterhazy  stating  that  he  had  been  to  the 
manoeuvres  at  the  date  indicated.     Dreyfus  did  not  go  to 
the  manoeuvres. 


24    THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

(6)  A  recent  police  report  showing  that  Dreyfus  did 
not  gamble;  he  was  accused  of  it  in  1894  owing  to  a 
confusion  with  relations  and  others  of  the  same  name. 

(7)  The  dramatic  scene  between  Judge  Bertulus  and 
Colonel  Henry  in  the   former's  room,  when  the  judge 
told  the  colonel  he  knew  of  his  guilty  doings. 

(8)  A  telegram  of  1894  whence  it  follows  that  Dreyfus 
had  no  dealings  with  foreign  agents. 

(9)  Another  telegram  proving  Dreyfus  had  no  dealings 
with  foreign  Powers. 

(10)  Documents  showing  that  Dreyfus  never  confessed 
his  alleged  crime. 

Such  was  the  wider  scope  of  the  inquiry. 
The  exact  question  put  by  the  Court  of 
Appeal  before  the  Court-Martial  was  this  : 
Did  Dreyfus  deliver  to  a  foreign  Power  the 
documents  enumerated  in  the  bordereau  ? 

Now  everything  was  ready  except  Dreyfus. 


II. 

How    DREYFUS   CAME  TO  RENNES. 

"  IT  is  Rennes  ?  "  asked  the  Frenchman  at 
the  opposite  corner  of  the  carriage,  unwinding 
himself  from  his  blanket.  "  It  is  Rennes, 
monsieur, "answered  the  little  guard.  At  the 
word  I  woke  and  cast  off  my  moorings  also, 
and  staggered  down  on  the  platform. 

There  was  nothing  to  see  but  the  typical 
French  railway  station,  with  its  complete  roof 
and  low  concrete  platforms,  its  walls  naked  of 
advertisement,  and  general  air  of  cold,  formal 
civilisation.  Ludgate  Hill  is  a  picturesque 
barn  compared  with  the  ordinary  railway 
station  of  France.  The  platforms  were 
peopled  by  half  a  dozen  red-bagged  soldiers, 
a  bluejacket  or  two  on  the  way  to  Brest,  an 
apple-cheeked  peasant  girl  or  two,  and  a 
most  heavenly  smell  of  hay. 

No  matter ;  I  was  in  the  emotional  centre 
of  France.  Here,  if  anywhere,  there  would 


26    THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

be  something  to  see  and   feel.     I   set  forth 
into  the  town  with  a  thrill. 

It  was  four  o'clock  ;  dawn  had  broken  half 
an  hour  ago.  It  was  quite  light,  with  the 
sober,  unillusioned  light  that  precedes  sun- 
rise. I  looked  out  for  the  keen  little  knots 
of  journalists,  gendarmes,  Anti-Semites, 
Dreyfusards,  and  secret  agents  who,  as  I 
knew,  kept  Argus-eyes  on  Rennes  railway 
station  from  midday  to  midnight  and  on  to 
midday  again.  There  was  apparently  not  a 
single  journalist,  gendarme,  Anti-Semite, 
Dreyfusard,  or  secret  agent  in  the  place. 
Nothing  at  all  except  the  smell  of  hay  and  a 
fluff  of  rosy  clouds  and  one  commissionaire 
methodically  balancing  my  baggage  on  a 
hand-cart.  For  the  rest  Rennes  was  sheer 
silence  and  sleep-blind  windows  and  dumb 
cobblestones.  For  the  moment  I  was  the 
life  of  Rennes,  the  emotional  centre  of 
France. 

But  it  will  wake  up  presently,  I  said. 
For  the  moment  the  Dreyfusards  and  the 
Anti-Dreyfusards  are  taking  much-needed 
rest.  So  I  went  to  bed  and  woke  up  again 
at  eight,  sprang  to  the  window — and  Rennes 


How  DREYFUS  CAME  TO  RENNES.  27 

was,  if  anything,  a  trifle  sounder  asleep  than 
before.  It  was,  on  the  whole,  the  least 
excited-looking  town  I  ever  saw. 

The  hotel  looks  on  to  a  broad  street,  with 
a  river  flowing  down  the  middle  of  it.  From 
its  rigid,  stone-walled,  iron-railed  banks  you 
would  judge  it  a  canal,  but  I  am  assured  it 
is  a  river.  On  its  sepia-green  water  floated 
a  barge,  piled  up  with  ladders  and  planks 
and  scaffold-poles,  laboriously  towed  by  three 
men  in  webbed  cross-belts.  Down  the 
twenty  feet  from  street  to  river  led  flights 
of  steps  here  and  there,  and  at  the  bottom 
women  were  washing  clothes.  The  back- 
ground of  this  simplicity  was  such  dignified 
house-architecture  as  even  the  provinces  of 
France  never  fail  of — tall,  large-windowed, 
stucco-fronted  houses,  with  high-gabled,  grey- 
slated  roofs — houses  that  convey  an  air  of 
space  and  comfort  and  attention  to  the 
amenities  of  life.  But  the  shutters  were  all 
closed  against  the  morning  sun  ;  the  great 
doors  yawned  black  and  cavernous,  but 
nobody  passed  in  or  out.  Not  a  single 
"  Conspuez"  broke  the  silence.  And  was 
this  Rennes  ? 


28  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

It  was  ;  and  that  a  very  clean,  leisurely, 
characteristic,  altogether  charming  bit  of  pro- 
vincial France.  The  first  striking  difference 
from  an  English  country  town  is  the  size  of 
the  houses,  their  look  of  airy  comfort,  and 
the  unearthly  cleanness  of  everything.  An 
English  town  of  the  size  would  display  one 
uneven,  bending,  irregularly  and  dingily 
picturesque  High-street,  with  shop-fronts 
elbowing  each  other  aside,  and  a  sky-line 
here  four  stories  high,  here  two.  Here  five 
stories  is  almost  the  rule  in  the  main  streets, 
and  the  stories  are  themselves  higher.  The 
windows  rise  from  floor  to  ceiling.  The 
stucco  might  be  washed  daily,  and  the  square- 
paved,  rough  stone  streets — abominable  for 
riding  or  driving  or  walking — look  as  though 
there  were  no  such  thing  as  smoke  or  mud 
or  any  kind  of  dirt  in  the  world.  The  straw- 
hatted  workmen  or  lace-capped  workwomen 
move  with  easy-minded  slowness.  Rennes  has 
all  the  consciousness  of  civilisation  that  dis- 
tinguishes France — the  town  of  a  people  that 
has  long  since  learned,  as  we  shall  never,  to 
make  its  first  business  the  agreeable  living 
of  life. 


How  DREYFUS  CAME  TO  RENNES.  29 

Embedded  in  the  suave  eighteenth-century 
amenity  are  little  bits  of  old  Rennes.  There 
is  the  city  gate  whereby  the  Grand  Dukes 
of  Brittany  used  to  enter,  with  defaced 
escutcheons,  with  beetle-browed  garrets  over 
the  arch,  and  a  tiny,  slant-roofed,  latticed, 
wooden  hutch — derelict  from  the  Middle 
Ages,  when  rooms  were  not  built  to  move 
in — crouching  at  its  feet.  Here  you  see  the 
over-reaching  stories  of  an  old  house  propping 
itself  between  the  severe  lines  of  two  new 
ones ;  there,  in  a  court,  an  open-fronted, 
wooden,  padoga-built  porter's  lodge  that 
might  have  come  straight  from  India.  Be- 
tween the  relics  puff  light  street  railway- 
trains — goods  trains,  mark  you,  down  the 
main  street — and  electric  tramcars  hoot,  for 
nowhere  is  industrial  civilisation  more  brutally 
utilitarian  than  in  aesthetic  France.  Dreyfus 
returning — 

True  :  I  was  forgetting  Dreyfus.  This 
was  June  28th.  He  was  to  arrive,  said  all 
but  official  sources,  to-night  or  the  first  thing 
to-morrow  morning.  The  enterprise  of  French 
and  English  newspapers  had  glutted  the 
hotels  with  correspondents  and  artists  and 


30  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

operators  of  cinematographs.  We  waited  for 
the  great  moment  of  the  arrival — and  waited 
and  waited.  "  Any  news  ?  "  was  the  morning 
salutation,  and  there  were  only  two  variants 
in  the  answer  :  either  "  No  "  or  "  I  have  just 
heard  from  a  good  source  that  Dreyfus  has 
arrived."  Everybody  was  straining  every 
nerve  upon  waiting — waiting  with  fierce 
and  concentrated  energy. 

The  strategic  waiting-point  was  about  a 
quarter  of  a  mile  of  road  between  the  railway 
station  and  the  military  prison.  Little 
crowds — a  dozen  is  a  crowd  in  Rennes— 
gathered  to  look  at  the  gate  through  which, 
it  was  by  now  decided,  Dreyfus  would  not 
pass  from  his  cell  to  the  trial.  Others, 
especially  we  correspondents,  put  in  an 
occasional  sentry-go  round  the  prison  to 
make  sure  that  an  incalculable  Government 
had  not  moved  it  somewhere  else  in  the  last 
half  hour.  1 1  was  uninteresting  enough  to  look 
at — a  high  stone  wall,  with  a  shapeless  stone 
building  rising  above  it.  But  the  intriguing 
fact  about  it  was  that  the  yard  had  two  gates, 
and  who  could  tell  through  which  they  would 
take  him  ?  It  was  some  relief  to  the  strain 


How  DREYFUS  CAME  TO  RENNES.  31 

of  this  uncertainty  that  they  were  within  ten 
yards  of  each  other,  so  that  it  was  possible 
for  an  active  man  to  watch  both  at  the  same 
time.  Yet  more  exciting  was  an  oblong  bit 
of  building  whence  three  barred  second-story 
windows  appeared  above  the  wall.  One  (or 
two)  of  these  lit  Dreyfus's  cell,  and  the  other 
two  (or  one)  Du  Paty  de  Clam's.  But 
which — O,  spirit  of  journalism,  which  ?  * 
In  this  same  strategic  line,  by  good  luck, 
was  Mme.  Godard's  house,  where  Mme. 
Dreyfus  was  to  stay. 

Meanwhile  Mme.  Godard — who  did  not 
know  Dreyfus  or  anybody  to  do  with  him, 
and  had  taken  in  his  wife  out  of  sheer 
generosity  when  everybody  else  was  afraid 
—was  the  public  character  of  Rennes,  of 
France,  of  Europe.  That  being  so,  you 
will  readily  believe  that  she  might  sit  for  the 
absolute  type  of  the  middle-class  French 
old  lady.  Small,  soft,  silver-haired,  a  trifle 
wizened,  with  a  slightly  projecting  under-lip, 
bustling  in  manner,  gently  decided  and 


*  As  a  matter  of  fact,  neither  ;  Du  Paty  de  Clam  was 
beicg  tried  at  the  moment,  but  was  acquitted  on  the  ground 
of  acting  under  orders  from  his  superiors. 


32     THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

rapid  though  a  little  lisping  in  speech, 
breathing  homely  kindness  and  energy  in 
every  word  and  gesture — you  have  seen  her 
on  the  stage  a  hundred  times.  But  she  was 
indirectly  concerned  with  Dreyfus,  and  there- 
fore the  heroine  of  one  half  of  France  and 
the  she-devil  of  the  other. 

I  went  there  with  a  friend :  she  was  just 
going  out,  and  we  exchanged,  between  the 
three  of  us,  about  twenty  quite  ordinary 
sentences.  We  came  out  just  as  she  drove 
away.  Round  the  gate,  staring  passionately 
at  the  back  of  the  carriage,  stood  a  huge 
crowd  —  at  least  twenty.  A  decorated 
journalist  walked  quickly  up  and  asked 
where  she  was  going.  One  or  two  enthu- 
siasts ran  after  the  carriage.  Truly  we  live 
in  stirring  times. 

I,  too,  must  be  up  and  doing — must  brace 
up  and  go  out  and  wait.  The  prison  gate 
clamoured  to  be  looked  at. 


June    3Oth,  and  we  are    still  waiting    for 
Dreyfus. 

I  am  not  quite  sure  whether,  historically 


How  DREYFUS  CAME  TO  RENNES.  33 

speaking,  I  have  been  here  two  days  or 
three.  Spiritually  I  have  been  at  Rennes 
nearly  all  my  life.  I  can  hardly  remember 
what  happened  at  the  station  when  I 
arrived ;  and  I  look  back  at  myself  in 
Holborn  Viaduct  Station  last  Tuesday — 
ye  gods,  how  young  I  was  last  Tuesday  !— 
as  it  were  through  the  wrong  end  of  a  mile 
long  telescope.  Such  endless  vistas  of 
empty  time,  such  wildernesses  of  nothing, 
divide  me  from  last  Tuesday.  Shall  I  ever 
see  a  Tuesday  again  ? 

I  seem  to  know  Rennes  by  heart,  every 
feature  of  it.  The  spotless,  empty  streets  ; 
the  distant  hoot  of  empty  tramcars ;  the 
brown-cheeked  Breton  women,  in  their  little 
flat  white  lace  caps,  kneeling  in  little  boxes 
in  the  river,  and  beating  dirty  linen  on 
drawing  boards  with  butter  patters ;  the 
closed  doors  of  the  railway  station ;  the 
blank  walls  of  the  prison — I  have  grown 
up  and  grown  old  among  them  all.  Corre- 
spondents of  papers  in  Paris  and  Chicago, 
in  Madrid  and  Helsingfors,  unheard  of 
yesterday,  are  to-day  my  oldest  friends.  I 
no  longer  even  smile  at  the  spectacle  of  a 


34  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

score  of  intelligent  men  patrolling  empty 
streets  through  the  hours  of  sleep  on  the 
chance  of  seeing  for  ten  seconds  a  man 
whom  they  would  not  know  if  they  did  see 
him,  and  who,  if  they  did  know  him,  would 
not  matter.  In  forty-eight  hours  Rennes 
has  brought  me  to  this,  that  I  give  my 
whole  life  to  the  elaborate  and  conscientious 
execution  of  nothing,  and  no  longer  feel  a 
fool. 

It  is  all  the  eternal  instinct  of  sport,  of 
emulation,  of  gambling.  Implanted  in  man 
by  an  ironical  Creator,  it  leads  him  ever  to 
expend  infinite  effort  and  infinite  patience 
on  ends  which  are  only  not  utterly  insignifi- 
cant because  of  this  very  effort  and  patience 
that  man  lavishes  on  them.  This  Dreyfus- 
hunt  of  ours  is  on  the  exact  level  of  a 
dumpling-eating  competition,  or  of  betting 
on  the  colour  of  the  next  horse  that  turns 
into  St.  James's  Street.  It  is  no  earthly 
good  to  Dreyfus  or  to  France  or  to  you— 
[There  goes  that  cavalry  subaltern  again. 
He  rides  up  the  street  every  day  at  a  quarter 
to  three,  and  back  again  at  a  quarter  to  four  ; 
I  suppose  he  has  been  doing  it  since  the 


How  DREYFUS  CAME  TO  RENNES.  35 

creation  of  the  world] — and  least  of  all  is  it 
any  good  to  us.  But  because  we  have  begun 
it,  and  the  others  do  it,  we  all  do  it,  and  go 
on  doing  it. 

In  this  desert  of  waiting,  the  one  oasis— 
the  arrival  of  Madame  Dreyfus — attained 
the  rank  of  a  public  event  of  first-class 
importance.  When  the  unfortunate  woman 
arrived  one  afternoon  in  Rennes,  she  found 
the  station  quite  full  of  men  and  women 
waiting  to  look  at  her.  On  the  platform 
were  the  Director  of  the  Political  Police  and 
his  second-in-command,  the  Prefect,  the  whole 
Press  of  Paris  and  of  most  of  the  civilised 
world.  Outside  the  station  was  a  crowd  of 
a  couple  of  hundred  or  so — I  suppose  the 
vastest  assembly  of  human  beings  Rennes 
had  ever  seen.  Between  them  walked  the 
dolorous  procession  of  wife  and  relations  to 
the  shelter  of  Madame  Godard's.  "  Hisses 
resound,"  said  the  local  Anti-Dreyfusard 
organ  next  day,  "  a  few  are  found  who  raise 
the  hat  before  the  wife  of  the  traitor." 
"  Hats  fly  off,"  said  the  local  Dreyfusard 
organ;  "a  few  are  found  who  hiss  the 
sublime  figure  of  suffering  woman."  As  a 

D  2 


36     THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

fact,  nobody  much  was  found  who  did 
anything  but  stare.  After  the  garden 
gate  was  shut  a  man's  straw  hat  was 
visible  above  it ;  I  do  not  know  whether 
or  not  there  was  a  head  beneath  the 
hat,  but  Rennes  and  Paris  and  good  part 
of  the  world  stared  at  it  conscientiously  for 
half  an  hour. 

As  for  Dreyfus,  whom  we  were  there  for, 
there  was  no  reason  why,  for  all  our 
vigilance,  we  should  see  him  come,  if  the 
authorities  did  not  wish  it,  or  even  why  he 
should  come  just  now  at  all. 

Our  only  hope  was  in  the  dramatic  instincts 
of  the  French  officials.  The  French  official 
could  not  waste  his  Dreyfus.  A  closed 
carriage  drives  rapidly  up  to  the  prison  at  the 
dead  of  night — four  cloaked  figures  inside, 
two  on  the  box.  One  springs  down,  goes 
swiftly  to  the  postern  and  utters  a  pass-word. 
The  double  gate  springs  open,  the  carriage 
wheels  and  clatters  in,  the  gates  roll  back— 
Comme  qa  I  Bravo,  Messieurs  the  authorities  ! 

It  was  the  object,  therefore,  of  the  journal- 
istic world — which  appeared  to  be  about 
95  per  cent,  of  the  population  of  Rennes : 


How  DREYFUS  CAME  TO  RENNES.  37 

you  assumed  that  every  man  you  met  in 
hotel  or  cafe  was  a  journalist — to  be  on  the 
spot  at  this  sublime  moment.  With  this  view 
we  employed  our  day  as  follows. 

The  morning  hardly  counts  ;  in  this  kind 
of  life  the  morning  is  really  the  end  of  the 
day  before.  We  really  begin  to  live  about 
breakfast  time,  which  is  twelve  o'clock.  We 
go  down  to  the  dining-room  of  the  hotel  and 
enter  with  a  polite  obeisance  to  the  company. 
There  are  a  few  ladies,  a  couple  of  officers, 
some  townspeople  and  a  student  or  two.  At 
ordinary  times  I  imagine  they  form  little 
islands  at  the  big  centre  table  and  the  round 
side  tables  ;  but  in  these  days  the  intervening 
space  is  overrun  and  fused  with  a  lava  of 
correspondents. 

"  Good  day,  confrere.  Any  news  ?  They 
say  that  this  man  has  arrived  during  the 
night.  He  would  be  in  the  prison  now. 
But  I,  I  do  not  believe  it." 

"  Nor  I.  It  will  be  for  to-night.  Listen  ! 
I  have  learned  that  the  Commissary  of 
Police  left  yesterday  in  the  direction  of  Brest 
by  the  train  due " 

And  so  on.     In  the  intervals  we  are  fed 


38     THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

with  a  most  enormous  meal  of  radishes, 
anchovies,  cold  veal — cold  veal  by  way  of  an 
appetiser ! — fish,  eggs,  ragout  of  mutton  and 
haricot  beans,  beef  steak  and  potatoes,  a  sort 
of  Breton  junket  and  sugar,  cherries  and 
green  almonds.  That  over  we  stagger  out 
to  the  cafe.  Confreres  from  other  hotels 
drop  in ;  we  read  the  papers  and  talk.  We 
talk  of  the  arrival  of  Dreyfus.  As  soon  as 
digestion  allows,  we  start  off  by  single  twos 
or  threes  to  look  at  the  prison,  to  look  at  the 
railway  station,  to  look  at  Madame  Godard's. 
All  these  thoroughly  looked  at,  the  keener 
spirits  steal  away  to  interview,  if  possible,  the 
brother-in-law  of  Dreyfus,  the  friend  of 
Madame  Godard,  the  man  who  knows  the 
leader  of  the  local  Anti-Dreyfusards,  the 
gendarme  on  guard  at  the  railway  station. 
The  slacker  sort  sit,  as  it  seems  to  me, 
outside  the  caf6  all  the  afternoon,  occasionally 
rising  to  go  to  the  telegraph  office,  which 
was  providently  built  next  door  to  the  cafe\ 
to  send  to  their  papers  a  short  article  on 
the  return  of  Dreyfus.  For  me,  I  return  to 
the  hotel  to  write. 

[Here  comes  that  cavalry  subaltern  again. 


How  DREYFUS  CAME  TO  RENNES.  39 

I   suppose  he  has   been  to  the   end   of  the 
world  and  back  again.] 

I  go  out  to  the  caf6  again.  The  confreres 
are  there,  if  possible  in  greater  numbers 
than  ever.  There  is  a  band  playing — I  feel 
as  though  I  had  known  the  lady  who  takes 
round  the  napkin-covered  plate  in  a  previous 
existence — but  there  is  nothing  to  drink 
except  sticky,  sweet  syrups,  which  are  bad 
for  the  body,  and  vermouth,  which  is  bad 
for  the  soul,  and  absinthe,  which  is  bad  for 
both  ;  and  there  is  nothing  to  do  but  talk — 
an  occupation  I  detest.  Presently,  thank 
Heaven,  it  is  dinner-time — soup,  anchovy, 
cold  veal,  fish,  duck,  mutton,  beef,  chicken, 
pudding,  ice,  macaroons,  strawberries,  cherries, 
and  green  almonds. 

Out  to  the  cafe  again.  Again  the  band  is 
playing  and  the  lady  taking  round  the  plate 
and  wrapping  up  our  talents  in  a  napkin. 
Coffee,  cognac,  tobacco,  talk.  At  eleven  or 
so  the  Anglo-American  part  of  the  company 
goes  to  the  caf6  cliantant ;  to  the  more 
experienced  French  it  is  so  dull  that  it  is 
even  duller  than  the  caf6.  There  is  a  large 
room  with  plenty  of  gas,  a  stage  with  a  faded 


40  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

scene  apparently  representing  Fujiyama  or 
the  Bay  of  Naples  or  something,  and  a  lady 
singing  a  song  of  which  I  can  only  under- 
stand the  refrain — rum-tum-tum,  rum-tum- 
tum.  Will  no  one  tell  me  what  she  sings  ? 
Certainly  they  will,  most  readily,  and  then  I 
understand  that  my  curiosity  was  almost 
indelicate.  Grouped  about  the  room  are 
about  eight  ladies  in  skirts  and  portions  of 
bodices  ;  every  now  and  then  one  of  them 
disappears  through  a  door,  appears  on  the 
stage  and  sings  a  song.  The  only  person 
that  really  interests  me  at  the  cafe  chantant 
is  the  orchestra.  He  is  a  solitary  pianist  in 
a  cloth  cap,  which  he  never  takes  off.  I 
should  say  he  was  young  from  the  look  of 
his  back,  but  he  never  turns  round.  He 
never  speaks  or  moves  or  looks  at  the  stage 
or  even  shifts  his  cap  ;  he  just  accompanies, 
like  a  machine.  I  wonder  whether  he  knows 
that,  barring  the  performers,  there  are  not 
ten  people  in  the  place,  and  of  those  five 
foreigners. 

By  now  it  is  near  twelve,  and  the  real 
Dreyfus-hunt  begins.  Some  have  long 
installed  themselves  in  a  cafe  near  the  station, 


How  DREYFUS  CAME  TO  RENNES.  41 

but  about  this  time  the  cafe  people  want  to 
go  to  bed.  So  out  into  the  street  turns 
everybody — and  waits.  The  few  last  inhabi- 
tants stump  up  the  street  singing  and  dis- 
appear. Silence  comes  down  over  the  town. 
We  stroll  slowly  round  and  round  and  round 
the  prison.  Not  a  soul,  not  a  sound.  Yes, 
what  is  that  in  the  dark  gateway  ?  There 
emerge  three  cloaked  mysterious  figures. 
Hist !  Where  are  they  going  ?  Who  are 
they  ?  One  turns  and  moves  as  if  to  speak. 
"  Bon  soir,  confreres ! "  falls  cheerfully  on 
the  darkness. 

Round  again,  round  again,  round  and 
round  and  round.  A  sound  of  voices  falls 
on  the  ear ;  it  is  only  a  group  of  confreres 
exchanging  calculations  as  to  the  probable 
speed  of  a  special  train  from  Brest — or  else- 
where— to  Rennes.  But  hark !  there  is  the 
rattle  of  a  carriage  :  on  these  paving-stones 
you  can  hear  it  the  other  side  of  the  town. 
Nearer  and  nearer — ah,  it  has  turned  off- 
no,  it  is  coming  down  here ;  there  is  the 
lamp.  This  way !  It  is  going  straight  for 
the  prison  door  ;  run,  or  you  will  miss  him. 
It  stops  at  the  very  gate ;  a  cloaked  figure 


42     THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

springs  nimbly  out.     "Bon  soir,  confreres! 
he  affably  remarks. 

It  will  be  for  to-morrow. 


"  At  last !  This  time  it  is  official.  It  will 
be  for  to-night  at  two  o'clock." 

From  confrere  to  confrere  ran  the  joyful 
news.  At  last  he  really  was  arriving,  and 
in  future  there  would  be  a  reasonable  chance 
of  sleep  at  night.  Before  dinner,  as  we  sat 
in  the  everlasting  caf£,  there  came  fresh  con- 
firmation in  a  huge  black  paragraph  in  one 
of  the  local  newspapers.  He  was  coming 
from  the  direction  of  Lorient  by  a  special 
train,  arriving  at  2.4.  Why  they,  being  but 
journalists,  should  know  better  than  we,  I 
cannot  say ;  but  they  had  the  moral  advan- 
tage of  being  in  print  first.  Everybody  was 
now  quite  certain.  The  confreres  girded 
themselves  for  a  final  vigil. 

Nor  was  it  the  Press  alone.  Before  this 
fateful  Friday  we  had  had  the  town  and  the 
night  to  ourselves.  But  when,  at  nine  or  so, 
we  arrived  at  the  little  caf^  chantant  opposite 
the  railway  station — it  was  too  risky,  we  told 


How  DREYFUS  CAME  TO  RENNES.  43 

ourselves,  to  go  to-night  to  the  usual  one  in 
the  town — it  was  doing  such  business  as 
surely  was  never  done  in  Rennes  before. 
Every  table  was  full :  the  steam  of  drying 
clothes — it  was  raining  cats  and  dogs  outside — 
filled  the  place  with  the  climate  of  a  saucepan. 
Such  of  the  company  as  were  not  jour- 
nalists were  mostly  students — the  wonderful 
student  of  France,  so  wildly  opposed  to  all 
our  ideas  of  an  undergraduate.  The  French 
student  will  wear,  and  think  nothing  of  it,  a 
frock  coat  unbuttoned  off  a  green  and  violet 
checked  shirt,  bicycling  knickerbockers,  and 
yellow  buttoned  boots  ;  the  loose  loops  of  his 
tie  cover  his  whole  chest ;  his  hat  will  be 
white  and  brown  plaited  straw,  with  a  red 
and  black  ribbon  bearing  a  firmament  of 
black  and  red  stars.  His  untrimmed  beard 
makes  him  look  thirty  instead  of  twenty-two, 
which  he  is  ;  and  his  clay  pipe  suggests  that 
he  hopes  to  be  taken  for  a  working  man. 
None  the  less,  he  is  a  courteous  and  good- 
hearted  gentleman,  and  a  very  prince  of 
hospitality.  So  for  that  matter,  to  French 
stranger  and  foreign  stranger  alike,  is  every 
inhabitant  of  Rennes  I  have  met. 


44  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

The  parboiled  crowd  lent  but  a  languid 
ear  to  the  performers,  though  the  plate  which 
each  brought  round  after  each  effort  was 
filled  with  pennies  beyond  the  dreams  of 
benefits.  All  applauded  with  one  ear  cocked 
to  the  splashing  of  the  rain  outside.  From 
time  to  time  one  would  rise  and  mysteriously 
disappear,  returning  in  twenty  minutes  with 
a  dutiful  air  that  suggested  a  visit  to  the 
telegraph  office.  The  slacker  of  us  were 
content  with  the  eternal  talk  on  the  eternal 
subject.  Perhaps  he  will  be  before  his  time  ; 
we  must  leave  nothing  to  chance.  Will  he 
come  to  the  station,  to  the  arsenal,  to  the 
little  gate  by  the  barracks  of  the  loth  Cavalry, 
to  some  place  down  the  line  ?  Better  follow 
the  Figaro ;  he  is  sure  to  know.  Better 
follow  the  Temps.  The  Matin,  too,  has  good 
information.  Better  concentrate  on  the 
prison.  Only  at  which  gate  ? 

Let  us  take  a  turn  now  and  see  if  anything 
is  moving.  Was  there  not  a  rumour  after 
all  that  he  might  arrive  as  early  as  eleven  ? 
It  was  still  raining,  though  less  resolutely. 
Round  and  round  the  block  of  buildings  we 
patrolled ;  there  was  not  a  light  within  nor  a 


How  DREYFUS  CAME  TO  RENNES.  45 

sound  ;  only  from  the  neighbouring  tan-yard 
a  dog  howled  violently.  Round  the  whole 
circuit — perhaps  a  quarter  of  a  mile  of 
irregular  quadrangle — there  was  no  sign, 
except  other  prowlers  on  the  same  quest  as 
ourselves.  But  what  is  that  ?  Tramp, 
tramp,  tramp  -  -  a  squad  of  gendarmes 
emerging  from  a  by-street  and  patrolling 
also.  Now  last  night  and  the  night  before 
there  was  never  a  sign  of  a  gendarme  ;  surely 
that  must  mean  business. 

Minutes  drip  by  with  the  rain  ;  a  quarter 
of  an  hour  becomes  a  half.  Nothing  new- 
only  what  is  that  white  flash  of  light  down 
by  the  station  ?  Figures  start  out  of  the 
dark  and  begin  to  stream  hurriedly  down  the 
road  ;  then  check  one  after  another,  and  turn 
back  with  short  laughs.  It  is  only  one  of 
the  photographers  taking  a  flash-light  picture 
of  the  crowd  at  the  cafe.  It  is  the  end  of 
the  evening  there  ;  the  crowd  has  turned  out 
and  comes  strolling  up  the  road  to  the 
prison.  Midnight,  and  the  rain  is  dying  off. 
For  the  rest  of  the  time,  at  least,  we  shall 
be  dry. 

The   crowd  was   now   complete — perhaps 


46  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

three  hundred  of  it.  The  journalists  walked 
round  unceasingly  in  twos  and  threes  ;  the 
students  and  the  rest  fixed  on  what  they 
thought  a  likely  point  and  stayed  there. 
There  are  doors  in  all  four  sides  of  the  block 
of  buildings,  and,  they  said,  Dreyfus  might  be 
taken  in  at  any  one  of  them.  At  any  corner 
of  the  building  a  man  could  command  two 
sides,  as  far  as  the  gas  lamps  would  let  him  ; 
two  could  command  the  whole,  and  three 
could  signal  to  each  other  an  approach  on 
any  side.  But  these  strategic  considerations 
were  only  for  journalists ;  the  irresponsible 
crowd  preferred  to  keep  all  together.  So 
they  collected  in  the  main  street,  at  the 
corner  nearest  to  the  railway  station,  and 
smoked,  and  joked,  and  waited. 

One  o'clock  was  long  past,  and  as  it  began 
to  draw  near  2.4,  some  nerves  began  to 
tighten  and  quiver.  On  other  nights  the 
wheels  of  a  cab  on  the  cobbles  had  been 
as  an  alarm  bugle ;  to-night  the  first  cab 
brought  on  a  wild  stampede.  But  that  was 
only  for  the  first ;  to-night  cabs  were  quite 
common.  Each  charged  with  journalists, 
they  rumbled  from  the  prison  to  the  tele- 


How  DREYFUS  CAME  TO  RENNES.  47 

graph  office,  and  from  the  telegraph  office  to 
the  station,  and  from  the  station  to  the 
arsenal,  and  from  the  arsenal  back  to  the 
prison  again.  Two  o'clock  ;  2.4,  and  not  a 
sign.  Half-past,  and  a  cab  came  back  from 
the  telegraph  office  with  news.  A  despatch 
from  Paris  said  that  he  had  certainly 
landed,  and  would  certainly  come.  Another 
story,  purporting  to  be  from  the  railway 
station,  said  that  the  special  had  broken 
down. 

The  crowd  had  left  its  first  corner  now, 
and  collected  at  the  opposite  one,  close  to 
the  actual  gate  of  the  military  prison — the 
likeliest  place,  you  would  have  said,  if  only  it 
had  not  been  so  obvious.  The  crowd  was 
apparently  beginning  to  get  a  little  tired  of 
it.  Three  o'clock  and  half-past — it  would 
be  broad  daylight  in  half  an  hour.  Already 
the  background  of  the  sullen  clouds  was  a 
little  lighter.  A  cock  crew  inside  the 
prison. 

Ugh  !  It  began  to  grow  cold  with  the 
keen  wind  of  dawn.  Everybody  was  grow- 
ing silent  ;  the  wet  was  soaking  through 
their  boots  ;  their  feet  were  galled  on  the 


48     THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

cobbles.  Hardly  anybody  was  walking  now, 
hardly  anybody  talking.  The  blue-black  sky 
was  tinged  with  violet  now,  and  the  scent 
of  hay  stole  on  to  the  air.  Turn  one  way, 
and  you  were  in  the  lightening,  freshening, 
chaste-coloured  dawn ;  the  other,  and  you 
saw  a  silent  clump  of  black  people  motionless 
in  an  island  of  yellow  glare  from  one  gas 
lamp.  There  is  always  something  of  a 
miracle  in  daybreak — the  new  light  and  life 
creeping  in  on  you  so  imperceptibly  till 
suddenly  you  are  astonished  that  the  night 
has  vanished  without  warning.  Here  the 
sensation  was  underlined ;  it  was  almost 
indecent,  almost  a  monstrosity,  that  this 
black  group  in  the  garish  light  remained  just 
as  they  were  last  night  and  refused  to  be 
transfigured  with  the  rest  of  the  world. 

But  that  for  another  season  ;  meanwhile 
what  on  earth  has  become  of  Dreyfus  ? 
The  change  from  night  to  day  woke  every- 
body up  to  the  truth  that  they  had  waited 
and  he  had  not  come.  What  does  it 
mean  ?  Where  are  the  leading  journalists  ? 
Perhaps  at  the  telegraph,  perhaps  at  the 
station  ;  anyhow  not  here.  It  grows  lighter 


How  DREYFUS  CAME  TO  RENNES.  49 

and  lighter ;  they  would  never  bring  him  in 
by  daylight.  A  cab  drives  up  from  the 
station,  stops  ;  a  head  is  put  out  to  speak, 
and  instantly  the  whole  crowd  is  about  it. 
The  officials  at  the  station  are  bowled  over ; 
they  cannot  understand  it.  The  special 
train  was  to  come — has  not.  The  prefect's 
secretary  has  gone  home.  And  as  the  cab, 
perplexed  and  frantic,  clatters  off  towards 
the  telegraph,  there  stamp  along  the  pavement 
the  clogs  of  the  first  working-man. 

Another  disappointment.  The  merely 
curious  had  begun  to  drain  away  with  the 
first  breath  of  day ;  now  the  crowd  melted 
quicker  and  quicker,  till  hardly  more  than  a 
score  were  left.  "  Two  nights  without  sleep," 
grumbles  a  white-faced  correspondent. 
"  Five,"  corrects  him  one  who  can  hardly 
keep  his  eyes  open.  Well,  we  must  resign 
ourselves.  And  yet — and  yet  there  seems 
no  doubt  he  started.  The  streets  are  filling 
up  fast  now  with  workpeople  and  carts,  yet 
the  prison  gate  is  quite  solitary.  I  will  take 
this  end,  you  that ;  give  him  another  hour. 

As  I  stood  alone — the  one  left  of  hundreds 
—and  watched   the   gate,  it   stealthily  half- 


50  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

opened.  A  gendarme  put  his  head  out,  then 
put  it  back.  Then  it  opened  again ;  an 
officer  put  his  head  out  and  put  it  back. 
After  all,  what  was  there  in  that  ?  A  gen- 
darme appeared  round  the  street  corner, 
knocked  at  the  gate,  went  in,  came  out  again 
in  a  moment,  and  went  away.  After  all, 
why  should  not  a  gendarme  have  business 
in  a  prison  ?  Quarter  to  six,  nearly  six,  and, 
O  Lord,  I'm  sleepy.  This  really  is  getting 
too—  Hi !  A  yell  from  the  watcher  at 
the  other  end  of  the  street,  and  he  whips  out 
of  sight  round  the  corner.  As  I  am  getting 
started  after  him,  he  whips  back  again,  a 
tearing  crowd  at  his  heels.  Heavens,  they 
are  coming  to  my  corner !  I  tear  back  and 
round — and  he  is  come ! 

Two  carriages  are  driving  rapidly  towards 
me.  And  the  dead-walled  street,  ten  seconds 
ago  so  empty  that  you  would  say  nobody 
had  passed  down  it  since  it  was  made,  is 
swarming  full  of  gendarmes.  Out  of  doors, 
down  from  windows,  over  walls,  out  of  the 
very  ground,  it  seems,  they  spring  and 
scamper.  A  frantic  cry  from  one  of  the  car- 
riages, and  both  check  to  let  the  gendarmes 


How  DREYFUS  CAME  TO  RENNES.  51 

get  in  front.  The  first  dashes  past  me, 
screaming,  "  Move  on  !  move  on  !  "  hardly 
articulate  in  his  excitement.  His  fellows 
rush  up  just  in  time  to  meet  the  crowd 
rushing  up  from  the  other  way.  They  form 
a  line  across  the  street,  and  make  a  barrier 
of  carbines  held  athwart  their  bodies.  They 
are  all  as  pale  as  death — all  licking  lips 
dry  with  excitement.  Back !  Move  on ! 
Back,  back  !  A  little  man  in  a  sweater  appears 
behind  them,  in  command,  he,  too,  screaming 
"  Back,  back  ! "  The  carriages  now  appear 
again  round  the  corner ;  the  gate  in  this 
street  is  suddenly  seen  to  be  open.  The 
closed  landau  rolls  in ;  men  jump  from  the 
second  and  rush  in  after  it.  Gendarmes  still 
on  your  toes,  public  still  on  your  heels,  "Back, 
back ! "  still  bawled  down  your  throat — and 
the  door  is  shut,  and  Dreyfus  is  inside.  The 
gendarmes  halt  and  are  silent ;  their  cordon 
bars  the  street.  The  crowd  resumes  its  old 
occupation  of  looking  intently  at  nothing. 

Nine  hours  of  watching,  two  minutes  of 
seeing.  But  two  minutes  of  seeing  almost 
worth  watching  for — the  best  conceived, 
neatest,  quickest  bit  of  stage-management  in 

E    2 


52     THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

the  history  of  government.  You  rubbed  your 
eyes  and  wondered  if  it  was  real ;  at  a  word 
you  would  almost  have  resumed  watching 
again. 

Bravo,    Messieurs   the   authorities !      We 
had  seen  everything  except  Dreyfus. 


53 


III. 
ON  THE  EVE. 

PARIS  was  changed.  There  was  the  August 
stench  of  the  streets — less  evenly  spread,  but 
even  intenser  than  London's.  The  gasping 
drinkers  on  the  boulevards,  the  perspiring 
eaters  in  the  restaurants,  seemed  sparser  than 
they  had  been.  And  the  approach  to  the 
Montparnasse  railway  station — whence  the 
railway  train  shied  into  the  street — was 
like  a  pass  when  the  baggage  of  an  army 
is  shoving  through.  The  only  way  to  have 
got  up  quickly  would  have  been  to  hop  along 
the  roofs  of  the  cabs. 

Everybody  was  off  out  of  Paris — to  St. 
Malo,  to  Dinard,  to  Granville ;  and  seem- 
ingly everybody  was  off  by  the  same  train. 
At  the  ticket-windows  the  first  joint  of  the 
tail  seized  the  occasion  to  discuss  exhaustively 
with  the  lady  inside  the  particular  kind  of 


54  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

cheap  return  which  he  would  do  best  to 
take,  and  doubled  the  delay  by  submitting 
each  point  to  female  relations  outside  the 
barrier.  I  had  a  moment's  horrible  suspicion 
that  all  were  going  to  the  trial  of  Dreyfus. 

Then  Rennes — but  Rennes  unchanged— 
if  possible,  more  unchanged  than  ever.  And 
as  after  three  days  there  before  I  felt  as  if 
I  had  lived  there  all  my  life,  so  now  after 
three  hours  I  feel  as  if  I  had  never  been 
away.  London  ?  Paris  ?  No ;  I  have 
been  there,  but  I  cannot  remember  them. 
But  Rennes — the  sepia-green  canal-river  that 
runs  down  the  main  street  before  the  hotel, 
the  square-cobbled,  rattling  streets,  the 
half-empty  trolley-cars,  the  brown-cheeked 
Breton  women  kneeling  on  their  washing- 
boards  in  the  stream,  the  blue-bloused  Breton 
men  hauling  on  tow-ropes,  the  sauntering 
black-gowned  shovel-hatted  priests,  the  great 
placid  blue  boar-hounds,  the  tight-closed 
shutters  of  the  big  yellow  houses,  the  utter 
desolation  of  cleanness — O,  yes,  I  know  it 
all — have  known  it  since  the  beginning  of 
time.  And  what  an  astonishing  contrast — the 
Dreyfus  case  and  Rennes !  If  one  thing 


ON  THE  EVE.  55 

more  was  needed  to  throw  the  poignant 
drama  into  relief,  it  was  the  dead  silence 
of  this  "dead  town  in  which  it  was  played. 

The  blank-faced  railway  station,  the  blind- 
eyed  prison,  the  eight-course  breakfast,  the 
sips  at  the  cafe,  the  voluble,  bearded  fellow- 
correspondents — all  exactly  as  I  left  them. 
Except  that  the  confreres  this  time  are  more 
numerous  than  ever. 

We  filled  every  hotel,  every  boarding- 
house,  every  furnished  lodging,  every  restau- 
rant, almost  every  shop.  On  the  Saturday 
night  of  August  5th  they  were  even  enlarging 
the  cafe.  It  was  not  a  complicated  operation  ; 
the  patron  himself  seized  the  shrubs  in  tubs 
that  form  its  outer  walls,  and  pulled  them 
forward  into  the  square  until  his  premises 
were  enlarged  by  a  third.  From  the  state 
of  the  ground  where  the  bottoms  of  the  tubs 
had  been,  I  conjecture  that  the  cafe  never 
saw  such  an  event  before. 

The  confreres  themselves  were  from  every 
corner  of  the  reading  world  ;  and  they  looked 
it.  They  had  a  pleasant  legend  that  Satur- 
day afternoon  that  twelve  Turkish  journalists 
had  arrived  and  found  one  seat  allotted  to 


56  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

the  dozen.  There  were  British  and  American 
correspondents  who  knew  their  business — so 
much  so  that  in  a  week  both  the  leading 
cafes  of  Rennes  had  laid  in  a  stock  of  what 
they  miscalled  Scotch  whisky — and  there 
were  correspondents  from  Sweden  and  Russia 
who  neither  would  nor  could  correspond  at  all. 
There  was  a  Spanish  Anarchist — a  quiet, 
gentlemanly  fellow — who  had  made  his  name 
by  firing  on  the  police  at  Barcelona.  There 
was  a  placid,  infantile,  middle-aged  journalist 
from  Japan.  Every  correspondent  who 
came  from  Germany  or  Austria  had  added 
to  that  injury  the  insult  of  being  also  a  Jew. 
No  less  than  three  of  them  piled  up  the 
supreme  outrage  of  being  named  Dreyfus. 

But  the  French  confreres  were  still  the 
most  outlandish.  For  the  typical  Parisian 
life  is  a  perpetual  masquerade ;  he  must 
always  be  appearing  as  something.  One 
came  as  a  bicyclist,  in  a  flannel  shirt  over  an 
expansive  stomach  and  Madame's  bloomers  ; 
he  had  a  bicycle,  but  never  rode  it.  Another 
came  as  an  automobilist,  in  gaiters  and  an 
oil-cloth  cap ;  he  had  probably  never  more 
than  smelt  an  automobile.  A  French  Swiss 


ON  THE  EVE.  57 

came  as  a  mountaineer ;  you  expected  daily 
to  see  him  in  court  with  an  ice-axe.  Several, 
finding  themselves  within  a  couple  of  hours 
of  the  sea,  appeared  as  yachtsmen.  A  few 
were  disguised  as  Englishmen.  Their  ways 
were  as  wonderful  as  their  garb.  Most  of 
them  were  very  siphons  of  frothing  excite- 
ment all  through  the  trial.  They  collected 
news  mainly  from  each  other ;  they  could 
have  done  just  as  well  without  any  trial  or 
any  Dreyfus.  One  little  man  especially 
commanded  my  admiration.  He  was  never 
idle,  and  never  did  anything,  was  always 
hurrying  somewhere,  and  never  got  any- 
where. He  was  like  a  wasp  under  a  tumbler, 
surrounded  by  invisible  walls  which  prevented 
him  from  ever  getting  to  the  place  he  started 
for.  He  would  spring  up  agitatedly  in  the 
middle  of  nothing,  dash  himself  violently 
into  the  invisible  wall,  turn  and  rebound 
swiftly  in  the  opposite  direction,  rebound 
again,  sink  into  a  chair,  spring  up  again, 
rebound  again.  He  ricocheted  thus  off 
nothing  for  five  weeks  without  pause. 

On  Saturday  afternoon    they  allotted    us 
tickets    in    the    Bourse   de    Commerce.     At 


58  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

ordinary  times  the  Bourse  de  Commerce 
seems  to  be  like  a  corn  exchange,  except  that 
there  seems  to  be  no  corn  and  no  exchang- 
ing ;  to-day  it  was  a  mixture  of  the  examina- 
tion schools  at  Oxford  and  the  gallery  door 
of  a  music-hall.  In  part  of  it  they  were 
hammering  together  rows  of  little  desks  with 
a  noise  that  left  you  doubting  whether  the 
hammer  hit  the  nail  or  your  own  ear ;  this 
was  to  transform  the  place  into  a  hall  of 
correspondence.  For  Rennes,  hospitable  in 
this  as  in  all  things,  put  its  Bourse  de  Com- 
merce, because  there  was  no  room  in  the 
telegraph  office,  at  the  disposal  of  the  Press. 
In  another  part  sat  five  gentlemen  behind  a 
table  with  lists  and  tickets.  A  swollen  tor- 
rent of  confreres  surged  in  the  doorway,  barely 
restrained  by  a  suave  little  old  gentleman, 
who  assured  them  that  if  they  would  only  wait 
patiently  for  three  hours  everybody  would  be 
served.  Five  by  five  they  struggled  in  and 
received  their  passes.  Parisians  and  pro- 
vincials, agencies  and  foreigners  from 
San  Francisco  to  Yokohama,  each  rightly 
felt  that  unless  his  own  particular  organ 
knew  all  there  was  to  know  the  greatest 


ON  THE  EVE.  59 

State  trial  of  the  century  would  be  but  a 
toad-in-the-hole  after  all.  Especially  we 
foreigners  groaned  because  we  were 
allotted  half  a  ticket  each  instead  of  a 
whole  one.  But,  after  all,  it  was  France's 
Dreyfus  trial  and  not  ours ;  we  had  no  right 
to  so  much  as  a  seat  every  other  day.  The 
only  thing  was  that  there  was  really  plenty 
of  room  in  the  Press  seats  if  only  it  had  been 
better  distributed.  The  Times,  Morning 
Post  and  Daily  News,  the  New  York 
Journal  and  Neue  Freie  Presse  had  only 
half  a  ticket ;  the  Aftonbladet  of  I  don't 
know  where  had  two  whole  ones,  and,  as 
far  as  anybody  could  see,  used  neither. 
One  lucky  London  paper  found  that  it 
had  to  share  its  ticket  with  the  National 
Liberal  Club,  a  publication  which  did  not 
put  in  an  appearance.  Others  were  coupled 
up  with  Various,  whose  correspondent  was 
also  absent. 

Here  was  again  the  amazing  contrast 
between  the  straining  interest  of  the  world, 
embodied  in  its  reporters,  and  that  phlegmatic 
indifference  of  Rennes.  On  the  eve  of  the 
trial  you  saw  nothing  new  but  journalists. 


60  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

Witnesses  there  must  be  by  now,  no  doubt ; 
there  was  one  in  shining  garments  at  lunch, 
who  could  not  be  less  than  a  general,  and 
might  be  as  much  as  the  custodian  of  the  secret 
dossier.  Others,  no  doubt,  there  were,  but 
till  the  last  moment  we  did  not  see  them. 
Advocates  were  here  too  ;  and  the  prisoner 
was  always  here  in  the  scantily  furnished 
cell  behind  the  barred  windows.  The  back 
streets  round  the  prison,  which  used  to  be 
thronged  every  night  like  a  fair,  were  quite 
empty.  Only  the  clustering  journalists,  one 
or  two  at  every  table,  one  or  two  strolling  in 
every  street,  stood  for  the  tense  expectation 
of  a  whole  civilisation. 

The  note  was  silent,  tight-strung  expecta- 
tion.    The  very  journalists  were  less  full  of 
rumours   than    they   were   last   time.      The 
populace   was   made   of  apathy.     France- 
Paris  itself — was  all  but  calm. 

In  dead  silence  the  curtain  was  to  go  up  on 
the  last  act  of  the  great  drama.  And  what 
a  climax !  We  should  have  all  the  actors 
on  the  scene — Ministers,  officers,  experts  in 
writing,  simple  citizens,  accusers  themselves 
accused,  disinterested  champions  of  truth, 


ON  THE  EVE.  61 

relatives  fighting  for  their  kin,  traitor  and 
patriot,  victim  and  assassin.  We  should 
have  every  motive  of  melodrama — treachery, 
forgery,  prison,  suicide,  lawful  and  unlawful 
love,  conspiracies,  cryptograms,  the  bureaux 
of  secret  services  in  the  foreground  and  the 
palisade  of  Devil's  Island  for  the  back-scene. 
The  voice  of  a  great  nation  was  the  chorus, 

<t 

and  the  issue  her  distraction  or  her  peace. 

And  we  were  to  see  and  hear  the  accused— 
the  greatest  figure  in  France,  which  no  one 
knew.  The  name  of  Dreyfus  was  known 
more  widely  than  those  of  heroes  and  sages  ; 
yet  who  knew  so  much  as  whether  he  was 
handsome  or  plain,  brilliant  or  stupid,  good 
or  bad?  He  was  the  most  talked-of  man  in 
the  world,  and  had  himself  forgotten  how  to 
talk — the  most  famous  man  in  the  world, 
and  the  world  knew  nothing  of  him.  The 
mighty  blank  !  And  in  two  days  the  world 
would  have  begun  to  fill  him  in  ! 


62  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 


IV. 

DREYFUS. 

THE  Trial  was  to  begin  at  half-past  six. 
It  wanted  a  quarter  of  an  hour  of  the  time 
when  a  line  of  mounted  gendarmes,  pushing 
the  crowd  out  of  the  neighbouring  streets, 
proclaimed  that  they  were  taking  Dreyfus 
across  the  road  from  the  military  prison  to 
the  High  School,  in  whose  lecture-hall  he  was 
to  be  arraigned. 

A  moment  later  the  line  opened,  and  the 
crowd  of  journalists,  waving  their  passes, 
pushed  through.  They  jammed  in  at  a 
narrow  door,  up  stone  steps,  through  another 
doorway,  round  a  corner,  inside  a  cordon  of 
infantry,  and  they  were  in  the  court  It  was 
a  lofty,  oblong,  buff-plastered  hall  larger 
than  the  Prince's  Restaurant,  smaller  than 
St.  James's  Hall.  With  large  windows  on 
each  side — square  in  the  lower  tier,  circular 
in  the  upper — it  was  almost  as  light  as  the 


DREYFUS.  63 

day  outside  ;  round  the  cornice  were  em- 
blazoned the  names  of  Chateaubriand,  Lamen- 
nais,  Renan,  and  the  intellectuals  of  Brittany. 
At  the  top  was  a  stage,  its  front  filled  with 
a  long  table,  behind  this  seven  crimson- 
covered  seats  for  the  judges.  A  white 
Christ  on  a  black  cross,  hanging  on  the  back 
wall  above  the  President's  chair,  proclaimed 
the  place  a  Court  of  Justice.  On  the  right, 
as  you  faced  the  stage,  were  a  small  raised 
table  and  seats  for  the  counsel  of  the  accused  ; 
on  the  left  a  similar  erection  for  the  prose- 
cuting Commissary  of  the  Government  and 
his  assistants.  Down  each  side  of  the  body 
of  the  hall  was  a  strip  of  extemporised 
match-board  bench-and-desk  for  the  Press. 
In  the  broader  centre  were  seats  for  the 
witnesses,  then,  behind  a  bar,  for  the  favoured 
public.  Behind  all  this  ran  another  bar  lined 
by  a  guard  of  the  4ist  Infantry.  Behind 
their  homely  peasant  faces  and  between  their 
fixed  bayonets  peered  the  general  public, 
five  deep,  in  the  shallowest  of  strips  at  the 
very  back  of  the  hall. 

The  Press  stampeded  and  trampled  over 
the  match-board,  and  in  the  fulness  of  time 


64  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

sorted  itself  into  its  appointed  places. 
The  general  public  shifted  and  scrunched 
behind  the  barrier.  The  centre  of  the  hall 
began  to  fill  up  with  witnesses,  with  officers 
of  infantry  in  red  pantaloons  and  gunners  in 
black.  Behind  the  dais  appeared  a  sprink- 
ling of  selected  spectators.  Then,  on  the 
waxing  bustle  of  the  hall,  came  lawyers  in 
black  gowns  with  little  white-edged  tippets 
and  white  bands,  with  queer  high  black  caps 
like  birettas.  Now  we  should  see.  And 
next  moment — it  was  already  past  seven 
—there  was  a  hoarse  cry  from  behind- 
present  arms  ! — rattle — and  there  filed  in  the 
seven  officers  in  whose  hands  rests  the  con- 
science of  France.  The  President — a  small 
but  soldierly  man  in  eye-glasses,  with  black 
hair  and  a  small  face  all  huge  white  mous- 
tache and  imperial — saluted  and  sat  down. 
Bring  in  the  accused. 

Instantly  the  black,  rippling  hall  is  still  as 
marble,  silent  as  the  grave.  The  sergeant 
usher  went  to  a  door — the  tramp  of  his  feet 
was  almost  startling — on  the  right  hand  of 
the  top  of  the  hall.  It  opened  and  two 
officers  stepped  out.  One  of  them  was  the 


DREYFUS.  65 

greatest  villain  or  the  greatest  victim  in 
France — and  for  the  moment  men  wondered 
which  was  he.  It  seemed  almost  improper 
that  the  most  famous  man  in  the  world  was 
walking  in  just  as  you  or  I  might. 

Then  all  saw  him,  and  the  whole  hall 
broke  into  a  gasp.  There  came  in  a  little 
old  man — an  old,  old  man  of  thirty-nine.  A 
small-statured,  thick-set  old  man  in  the 
black  uniform  of  the  artillery  ;  over  the  red 
collar  his  hair  was  gone  white  as  silver,  and 
on  the  temples  and  at  the  back  of  the  crown 
he  was  bald.  As  he  turned  to  face  the 
judges  there  was  a  glimpse  of  a  face  both 
burned  and  pale — a  rather  broad,  large- 
featured  face  with  a  thrusting  jaw  and  chin. 
It  was  not  Jewish  in  expression  until  you  saw 
it  in  profile.  The  eyes  under  the  glasses 
were  set  a  trifle  close  together,  and  not 
wholly  sympathetic  either  ;  you  might  guess 
him  hard,  stubborn,  cunning.  But  this  was 
only  guessing :  what  we  did  see  in  the  face 
was  suffering  and  effort — a  misery  hardly  to 
be  borne,  and  a  tense,"  agonised  striving  to 
bear  and  to  hide  it.  Here  is  a  man,  you 
would  say,  who  has  endured  things  unendur- 

r 


66  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

able,  and  just  lives  through — maybe  to  endure 
more. 

He  walked  up  two  steps  to  his  seat  with  a 
gait  full  of  resolve  yet  heavy,  constrained, 
mechanical  —  such  a  gait  as  an  Egyptian 
mummy  might  walk  with  if  it  came  to  life  in 
its  swathing  grave-clothes.  He  saluted  the 
President  with  a  white-gloved  hand,  took  off 
his  kepi,  sat  down.  An  officer  of  gendarmes 
followed  and  sat  down  behind  him.  The 
Registrar,  rising  from  beside  the  prosecuting 
officer,  read  out  the  general  order  constituting 
the  court ;  then  the  white  moustache  and 
imperial  twitched  as  the  President,  in  a  small 
voice,  put  a  question  to  the  prisoner.  Another 
sudden  stillness :  then  came  the  voice  of 
Dreyfus.  No  one  heard  what  it  said — thin, 
sapless,  split,  it  was  such  as  might  rustle 
from  the  lips  of  a  corpse. 

What  he  had  said  was,  "  Alfred  Dreyfus  ; 
Captain  of  Artillery  ;  thirty-nine  years." 
With  these  three  common  phrases  he  broke 
the  silence  of  four  years  and  a  half.  Nothing 
could  be  more  formal,  and  yet  here  in  the 
first  five  minutes  of  the  trial  was  summed 
up  the  whole  incredibly  romantic  history, 


DREYFUS.  67 

Alfred  Dreyfus  --  five  years  ago  nobody 
knew  there  was  such  a  name  in  the  world  ; 
now  the  leading  comic  singer  of  Paris,  who 
was  born  with  it,  has  changed  it  because  it 
is  too  embarrassingly  famous.  Captain  of 
Artillery — and  generals  who  have  led  armies 
in  the  presence  of  the  enemy  have  lost  their 
commands  because  of  him.  Thirty-nine 
years — and  here  were  men  who  were  known 
before  he  was  born  staking  their  ripe  reputa- 
tions for  or  against  him.  Sitting  within  ten 
yards  of  him  were  Casimir-Perier,  the  only 
living  ex-Chief  of  the  State  in  which  he  was 
a  simple  unit ;  Mercier,  Billot,  Cavaignac, 
Zurlinden,  Chanoine — five  successive  heads, 
and  half  a  dozen  generals  besides,  of  the 
army  in  which  he  was  an  unregarded  sub- 
ordinate ;  Hanotaux,  the  Minister  who  for 
years  has  conducted  foreign  relations  in 
which  he  could  never  have  dreamed  of 
figuring — all  there  because  he  was.  Novelists 
like  Prevost  and  Mirbeau,  essayists  like 
Maurice  Barres,  philosophers  like  Max 
Nordau,  French  journalists  like  Arthur 
Meyer  and  Comely,  foreign  journalists 
who  linked  the  whole  world  together — they 

F    2 


68     THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

had  all  come  to  see  him.  There  were 
men  like  Picquart  and  Lebrun- Renault, 
nobodies  when  last  he  knew  and  spoke 
with  them — now  famous  in  two  continents 
just  because  they  had  known  and  spoken 
with  him.  Most  dramatic  of  all,  there 
was  a  little,  close-veiled  woman  in  black— 
Madame  Henry — a  woman  he  had  never 
seen,  widow  of  a  man  whom  he  never  knew, 
yet  who  had  risen  to  celebrity  and  fallen  to 
an  infamous  death  because  of  him. 

What  did  he  think  of  such  a  miracle,  such 
an  irony?  To  all  appearances  he  did  not 
think  of  it  at  all.  He  sat  rigid  and  upright, 
hugging  his  chair  close  with  back  and  legs 
and  feet,  his  hands  folded  to  the  kepi  on  his 
knees.  He  was  concentrating  all  the  energies 
of  a  mind  starved  for  five  years  on  the 
answers  he  would  presently  make  to  the 
charges  against  him.  He  had  time,  for  there 
followed  over  two  hours  of  technicality. 
There  was  a  flicker  of  interest  when  they 
read  out  the  names  of  the  witnesses,  and 
these  rose  in  their  places  to  cry  "  Present !  " 
The  curious  might  see  the  backs  of  all  the 
most  famous  heads  in  France. 


DREYFUS.  69 

% 

But  neither  Du  Paty  de  Clam  nor  Ester- 
hazy,  suspected  traitor  and  certain  scoundrel, 
answers  to  his  name.  After  that  short 
flicker  comes  a  brief  adjournment ;  the  judges 
go  out  and  the  prisoner  too. 

It  is  getting  stuffy  in  court,  and  we  begin 
to  remember  that  we  got  up  at  five.  As  a 
change  from  yawning,  all  go  out  into  the 
sunny  courtyard  ;  and  here,  among  gendarmes 
and  infantry,  you  can  look  closer  at  the 
witnesses  and  chief  persons — a  living  hand- 
book to  the  Dreyfus  case.  You  may  note 
that  General  de  Boisdeffre  looks  distinguished 
and  soldierly,  General  Mercier  hardly  more 
lifelike  than  Dreyfus,  M.  Cavaignac,  narrow- 
faced  and  narrow-chested,  like  a  schoolmaster 
—which  is  exactly  what  he  ought  to  have 
been,  and  delivered  aphorisms  on  virtue. 
Picquart  is  disappointing  ;  his  civilian  clothes 
fit  him  shockingly  ;  but  presently  you  see 
that  his  face  wears  a  large  expression, 
tolerant  and  reasonable.  There  are  many 
more  -  -  Mathieu  Dreyfus,  the  prisoner's 
brother,  with  an  open,  capable  Alsatian  face  ; 
reporter-poets  from  Paris — you  would  not 
know  their  names  —  by  the  half-dozen, 


70  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

showing  every  cut  of  beard  from  a  second 
moustache  bordering  the  whole  underlip  to 
a  growth  that  covers  a  waistcoat.  Of  the 
counsel,  Maltre  Demange,  who  defended 
Dreyfus  in  '94,  looks  the  rubicund  yet  rather 
sour  type  of  a  lawyer  all  the  world  over. 
But  Maltre  Labori,  the  advocate  of  Zola,  is 
the  most  attractive  figure  in  court.  He  is 
fair-haired,  fair-bearded,  with  something  of 
the  look  of  a  Norseman  and  all  of  the  build. 
He  tops  his  colleagues  by  the  head ;  his 
chest  is  vast  both  in  breadth  and  depth ; 
his  every  movement  is  that  of  a  good- 
humoured  giant  overflowing  with  energy  and 
force. 

Tinkle  goes  the  bell ;  judges  and  prisoner 
come  in  again.  The  Registrar  reads  the  Act 
of  Accusation  of  the  first  trial ;  it  is  long, 
and  has  been  public  property  for  a  year  and 
a  half — and  we  got  up  at  five.  But  when  it 
is  over  comes  the  moment  of  the  day.  The 
President  addresses  the  prisoner  in  a  voice 
suave  yet  sharp,  and  Dreyfus  stands  up. 
He  is  round-shouldered,  yet  he  stands  bolt 
upright,  and  looks  his  judge  hard  in  the  face. 
A  paper  is  handed  to  him — the  bordereau,  at 


DREYFUS.  71 

once  the  act  and  evidence  of  treachery.    Did 
he  write  that  ? 

Again  an  instant's  dead  silence — and  then 
again  the  dry,  split,  dead  man's  voice.  It  is 
the  voice  of  a  man  who  has  forgotten  how 
to  speak,  who  is  struggling  desperately  to 
master  tones  which  crumble  and  fail  him. 
The  voice  rises — half  a  shriek  and  half  a  sob. 
But  the  words  you  hear  are,  "  I  am  innocent, 
my  colonel."  Then  the  colonel's  soft  tones 
again  and  more  answers.  The  brake  of  the 
1 20  millimetre  gun,  the  artillery  firing- 
manual,  Dreyfus's  journeys  to  Alsace,  a 
suggested  trip  to  Brussels,  his  relations  with 
an  Austrian  mistress,  his  alleged  confession — 
a  string  of  cross-examination.  It  is  difficult 
to  follow  the  questions ;  but  after  five 
minutes  the  answers  are  heard  in  every 
corner  of  the  hall.  He  has  found  his  voice, 
and  it  is  thick  and  full.  No  ;  no,  my  colonel ; 
never  ;  I  never  played  ;  I  do  not  know  him  ; 
I  never  said  so — the  denials  follow  on  the 
questions  sharply,  instantly,  eagerly.  Now 
and  again  a  white-gloved  hand  is  raised  in 
emphasis,  while  the  white  left-hand  fingers 
twitch  on  the  kepi.  Now  and  again  comes  a 


72  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

sentence — precipitate,  almost  breathless,  as 
if  he  feared  to  lose  one  second  of  his  chance 
to  be  heard.  Every  moment  his  back 
stiffens,  his  voice  deepens,  his  hand  is  raised 
more  appealingly,  his  protestations  burst  out 
more  fervently.  It  is  a  man  fighting  for  his 
life  against  time. 


73 


V. 
MERCIER. 

THE  second  and  third  and  fourth  and  fifth 
days  of  the  Dreyfus  case  were  devoted  to 
the  study  of  the  secret  papers  bearing  on  the 
matter.  They  had  been  brought  from  Paris 
by  General  Chamoin  on  behalf  of  the 
Minister  of  War.  They  consisted,  as  we 
heard,  of  nearly  six  hundred  documents, 
dealing  with  the  subject  more  or  less  rele- 
vantly. It  seems  an  enormous  collection, 
but  you  must  remember  that  for  several  years 
the  French  War  Office  has  done  nothing  to 
speak  of  except  collect  documents  dealing 
more  or  less  relevantly  with  the  Dreyfus 
case. 

Four  days,  therefore,  the  eager  journalist 
had  to  spend  outside  the  court,  for  of  course 
the  secret  dossier  was  considered  behind 
closed  doors.  It  was  some  consolation  later 


74  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

that  everything  in  it  of  any  moment,  in- 
cluding confidential  cryptograms  and  names 
of  secret  agents,  was  cheerfully  divulged  to 
the  whole  world.  In  the  meantime  some 
got  up  at  five  to  see  Dreyfus  march  across 
the  street  from  his  prison  to  the  court ; 
some  frequented  the  doormats  of  Demange 
and  Labori  in  the  vain  hope  of  an  indiscretion  : 
others,  less  avid  of  excitement,  were  content 
to  watch  the  case  from  the  nearest  and  most 
agreeable  watering-place. 

But  everything  comes  to  him  who  waits, 
and  in  due  time  came  Saturday,  August  I2th. 
We  entered  the  hall  at  6.29 — the  hall  of  the 
Lycee  had  the  property  of  everything  else  in 
Rennes,  that  immediately  you  seem  to  have 
known  it  all  your  life — and  awaited  the  first 
witness.  This  was  a  dapper  young  diplo- 
matist called  Laroche- Vernet,  and  his  evidence 
at  the  moment  was  utterly  incomprehensible. 
It  was  plainly  the  continuation  of  the  four 
days'  discussion  of  the  secret  dossier,  and 
seemed  to  have  to  do  with  a  cipher  telegram 
from  Colonel  Panizzardi  to  his  chiefs  in  Rome. 
It  seemed  to  have  been  intercepted  and  de- 
ciphered, and  there  seemed  to  have  been 


MERCIER.  75 

two  versions  communicated  by  the  French 
Foreign  Office  to  the  War  Office.  The  first, 
a  provisional  one,  ran  :— 

"  Captain  Dreyfus,  who  has  not  had  relations  with 
Germany,  is  arrested.  If  he  has  had  no  relations  with 
you  in  Rome  send  official  denial.  Emissary  warned." 

The  second,  and  only  official,  version  sent 
to  the  War  Office,  substituted  for  the  words 
"  emissary  warned  "  the  words  "  to  avoid  press 
comment."  In  the  course  of  weeks  we  saw 
the  importance  of  this ;  for  the  moment  the 
great  Dreyfus  trial  seemed  to  be  opening  a 
little  tamely. 

But  next  came  M.  Casimir-Perier.  Now 
we  should  have  something  !  The  more 
sanguine  Dreyfusards  built  enormously  on 
the  ex-President.  He  resigned  in  1894, 
they  said,  because  he  knew  that  Dreyfus  was 
innocent ;  now  he  will  prove  it.  M.  Casimir- 
Perier  came  up — the  brilliant  man  who  never 
went  wrong,  who  was  a  distinguished  officer 
at  twenty-three,  who  was  President  of  the 
Republic  at  fifty-four,  who  is  beloved  by 
everybody  about  him — a  smallish  man,  with 
an  open  candid  face,  a  very  long  drooping 


76  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

moustache,  and  an  extraordinarily  broad  top 
to  his  head.  He  lifted  his  hand  to  the 
cross  and  swore  to  tell  the  truth,  the  whole 
truth,  without  hate  or  fear — then  began.  His 
elocution  was  pleasing,  his  gestures  free  and 
attractive,  his  matter — yes  ;  what  about  his 
matter  ?  As  period  rolled  out  after  period 
it  began  to  strike  us  that  M.  Casimir- 
Perier  was  saying  nothing  about  the  Dreyfus 
case  at  all.  He  had  come  here  not  to  say 
what  he  knew  of  the  Dreyfus  case,  but  to 
complain  that  he,  then  Chief  of  the  State, 
knew  nothing.  The  spoiled  child  of  fortune 
had  come  only  to  propitiate  his  wounded 
self-esteem.  It  suddenly  occurred  to  the 
more  sanguine  Dreyfusards  that  if  he  had 
been  able  to  prove  Dreyfus  innocent  he 
would  have  done  it,  without  resigning,  five 
years  ago. 

An  hour  and  a-half  of  giving  evidence  ; 
total  evidence  given — none.  But  then  came 
General  Mercier.  The  hall  thrilled  to 
silence  as  the  neat  figure  went  up  to  the 
bar  and  took  the  oath.  Mercier  was  the 
real  prosecutor  of  Dreyfus,  and  at  the  same 
time  he  was  really  on  his  own  defence. 


MERCIER.  77 

It  was  certain  that  in  sending  secret  docu- 
ments to  the  1894  Court- Martial  he  had 
brought  himself  under  the  criminal  law. 
He  could  save  himself  by  an  overwhelming 
proof  of  the  prisoner's  guilt,  and  that  was 
what  his  partisans  were  expecting  him  to  do. 
"  I  will  tell  all — all,"  he  had  repeated  again 
and  again.  He  began  to  speak.  Now  ! 

He  spoke  and  spoke  and  spoke.  He  gave 
evidence  for  three  hours  and  a-half,  and  at 
the  end  we  were  not  a  foot  more  advanced 
than  we  were  at  the  beginning.  Mercier's 
evidence  explained  nothing — but  Mercier's 
personality  suggested  whole  volumes.  He 
said  hardly  more  than  Casimir-Perier,  and 
said  it  a  great  deal  less  clearly  ;  but  the  very 
obscurity  hinted  at  possibilities  immeasurable. 
It  was  characteristic  of  the  man  that  his 
deposition  dealt  largely  with  the  cryptic 
methods  of  the  bureau  of  espionage.  And 
yet,  though  he  revealed  secret  after  secret 
with  an  amazing  audacity  of  indiscretion,  his 
revelation  was  itself  so  cryptic  that  we  knew 
no  more  of  their  bearing  after  he  had  dis- 
coursed for  an  hour  than  when  he  began. 
Mercier's  personality  strikes  the  note  of  the 


78  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

whole  Dreyfus  case.  Looking  at  his  back  as 
he  gave  evidence — tall,  straight  and  slim— 
you  could  have  called  him  soldierly  and 
suspected  him  stupid.  On  his  face  and  neck 
the  bronzed  skin  hangs  loosely.  There  is 
neither  depth  of  cranium  nor  height  of  forehead 
to  hold  a  brain  in.  The  eyes  are  slits  with 
heavy-curtained  lids  and  bags  beneath  them 
that  turn  the  drooping  cheeks  into  caverns. 
A  little  moustache  and  beard  frame  thin  lips 
that  might  be  evil,  sensuous,  humorous,  but 
could  never  be  human.  If  you  look  at  his 
head  you  think  him  a  vulture  ;  if  at  his  face 
you  call  him  a  mummy.  He  speaks  in  a 
slow,  passionless  monotone  ;  his  gestures  are 
calculated  to  follow  his  words  instead  of 
proceeding,  as  a  Frenchman's  should,  along 
with  them,  on  the  same  impulse.  When  he 
was  interrupted  by  Casimir-Perier  he  per- 
sisted in  his  assertions  with  the  dogged 
mumble  of  a  schoolboy  detected  in  a  lie.  As 
he  sat  and  strove  to  wind  the  toils  of  treason 
round  the  prisoner  he  seemed  as  unmoved  by 
hate  as  by  pity ;  he  accused  him  dully,  as  if 
repeating  a  lesson.  Cold,  deliberate,  tor- 
tuous, thorough  yet  ineffective,  verbose  but 


MERCIER.  79 

not  candid,  battling  bravely  with  native 
stupidity,  truly  believing  himself  to  be  doing 
God's  work,  fearless  of  responsibility,  un- 
touched by  anger  or  pity,  fear  or  hope  either 
for  others  or  for  himself — General  Mercier 
was  the  very  type  and  mirror  of  a  Jesuit 
Grand  Inquisitor. 

He  burrowed  at  once  into  the  dossier. 
He  had  held  no  official  position  since  1896, 
yet  he  seemed  to  have  copies  of  all  the 
country's  most  confidential  archives  in  his 
pocket.  The  most  important  documents  he 
read,  by  way  of  proving,  first,  that  there  was 
treachery  abroad  in  1894,  and  second,  that 
the  traitor  was  Dreyfus.  First  came  what 
they  call  the  "doubt  proof"  document — the 
translation  of  a  cipher  telegram  of  December 
29th,  1893  5  it  was  from  von  Schwarzkoppen 
to  his  Government.  I  give  it  in  English, 
and,  as  the  interpretation  is  doubtful,  without 
punctuation  : — 

Doubt  proof  officer's  brevet  situation  dangerous  for  me 
with  French  officer  not  conduct  negotiations  personally 
brings  what  he  has  absolute  *  *  *  [a  blank  Iiere\. 
bureau  des  rensdgnements  \this  in  French\  no  relation 
regiments  importance  only  coming  from  Ministry  already 
somewhere  else. 


8o  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

Schwarzkoppen,  explained  Mercier,  was 
answering  a  criticism  that  his  secret  infor- 
mation bears  no  guarantee  that  it  comes 
from  the  General  Staff.  He  replies  that  he 
has  got,  or  will  get,  proof  in  the  spy's 
officer's  brevet,  that  it  is  better  to  have  no 
relations  with  a  mere  regimental  officer,  but 
that  the  only  important  information  is  to  be 
had  from  the  Ministry  of  War.  Finally  he 
adds  that  the  spy  has  already  worked  for 
Germany  somewhere  else.  This  last  point 
is  interesting,  commented  Mercier,  because 
Dreyfus  is  also  accused  of  having  betrayed 
the  melinite  and  Robin  shells  when  he  was 
at  the  School  of  Pyrotechnic  at  Bourges. 

The  next  document  is  called  "the 
Davignon  letter "  ;  it  is  from  Panizzardi  to 
Schwarzkoppen  :— 

I  have  just  written  again  to  Colonel  Davignon.  If  you 
have  a  chance  to  speak  of  the  question  to  your  friend,  be 
careful  to  do  so  in  such  a  way  that  Davignon  shall  not 
know  of  it. 

This  concerned  an  unimportant  question 
as  to  recruiting,  but  it  shows  that  Schwarz- 
koppen had  a  friend  in  the  second  bureau  of 
the  General  Staff,  and  that  the  attaches  did 


„     MERCIER.  81 

not  wish  Davignon  to  know  it.  Dreyfus 
was  in  the  second  bureau  during  the  first 
half-year  of  1894. 

Next  is  another  letter  of  about  the  same 
date  from  Panizzardi,  saying  he  was  about 
to  get  the  military  organization  of  the 
French  railways.  Now  Dreyfus  was  in  the 
fourth  bureau,  which  dealt  with  railways, 
during  the  second  half  of  1893. 

After  that  the  celebrated  "-canaille  de 
D—  -"letter,  apparently  from  Schwarzkoppen : 

1 6  April,  1894. 
MY  DEAR  FRIEND, 

Herewith  twelve  plans  which  that  cad  D gave 

me  for  you.  I  told  him  that  I  had  no  intention  of  re- 
suming relations.  He  said  there  was  a  misunderstanding. 
....  I  told  him  he  was  mad,  and  that  I  did  not 
believe  you  would  resume  relations  with  him.  Do  what 
you  like.  .  .  . 

ALEXANDRINE. 

It  has  been  said,  commented  Mercier,  that 
so  valuable  a  spy  as  Dreyfus  would  not  be 
called  a  cad  or  told  he  was  mad.  But  the 
higher  the  position  of  a  spy  the  more  he 
would  have  been  despised  by  his  employers, 
and  the  more  thoroughly  they  would  have 
him  in  their  power.  The  plans  in  question 

G 


82  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

were  those  of  Nice,  which  at  that  moment 
were  being  revised  in  the  General  Staff 
offices. 

Finally  were  read  out  reports  of  verbal 
communications  from  a  secret  agent  called 

X ,  who  was  apparently  no  other   than 

the  Spanish  Military  Attache  :— 

March,  1894  :  "  I  infer  from  my  last  conversation  with 
Schwarzkoppen  and  Panizzardi  that  they  have  an  officer 
in  the  General  Staff  who  informs  them  admirably." 

April,  1894  :  "  You  have  one  or  several  wolves  in  your 
sheep-fold." 

June,  1894:  "An  officer,  who  is,  or  was  in  March,  in 
the  second  bureau  of  the  General  Staff  is  giving  informa- 
tion to  Schwarzkoppen  and  Panizzardi." 

Mercier  had  finished  with  the  secret  dossier. 
Now,  in  the  same  dry,  measured  monotone, 
he  went  on  to  the  arrest  of  Dreyfus,  the 
danger  of  war  with  Germany  which  led  him 
to  communicate  the  secret  documents  secretly 
to  the  Court-Martial,  to  Dreyfus's  alleged 
confessions,  to  the  examination  of  the  bor- 
dereau. He  insisted  especially  that  this 
document  must  have  been  written,  not  in 
April,  as  was  contended  in  1894,  but  in 
August.  Its  final  expression — "  I  am  just 


MERCIER.  83 

starting  for  manoeuvres" — would  seem  at 
first  sight  inapplicable  to  Dreyfus,  who  did 
not  go  to  the  grand  manoeuvres  of  September 
in  that  year.  But  he  thought  he  was  going, 
urged  the  General,  until  the  last  moment. 
A  rule  was  made  that  year  that  the  officers 
going  through  a  course  in  the  General  Staff 
should  not  go  to  the  manoeuvres,  but  at  the 
date  of  the  bordereau  Dreyfus  did  not  yet 
know  of  this. 

I  am  free  to  own  that  most  of  General 
Mercier's  remarks  came  into  my  brain  through 
a  drowsy  mist.  I  did  certainly  shake  myself 
when  I  heard  the  soothing  monotone  pass 
from  French  into  English;  when  Mercier 
appeared  to  be  saying,  "  I  can't  go  on  all  day 
listening  to  this  sort  of  stuff,"  I  knew  I 
must  be  dreaming  and  woke  up.  On  the 
stroke  of  twelve  I  was  distinctly  aware  that 
he  had  turned  round  in  his  chair  and  was 
facing  Dreyfus.  "  If  I  had  the  least  doubt 
of  his  guilt,"  said  the  icy  tones,  "  I  should  be 
the  first  to  come  to  Captain  Dreyfus  " — it 
floated  into  my  mind  that  this  was  almost  too 
cruel  even  for  bloodless  Mercier — "  and  to 

say  to  him  I  was  honestly  mistaken ' 

G  2 


84  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

God,  what  was  that?  What  is  it  ?  A 
yell,  fierce  and  poignant,  the  bursting  of 
furious  passion  tight  pent  up  !  It  ripped  the 
calm  to  pieces,  and  you  half  expected  the 
hall  to  split  asunder.  Dreyfus  was  up  on 
his  feet,  his  body  bent  double,  checked  in 
mid-spring  by  the  officer's  gentle  hand  on  his 
arm,  his  fist  pommelling  the  air,  his  head 
and  livid  face  craned  forward  at  Mercier,  his 
teeth  bared  as  thirsty  for  blood.  He  looked 
as  if  he  would  have  leaped  upon  him  like  a 
panther,  but  for  the  touch  on  his  arm.  And 
the  voice!  "You  should  say  that"  were 
the  words — but  the  voice  !  None  of  us  who 
heard  it  will  ever  describe  it — or  forget  it. 
Men  heard  it  that  night  in  their  sleep.  It 
was  half  shriek,  half  sob,  half  despair,  half 
snatching  hope,  half  a  fire  of  consuming  rage, 
and  half  an  anguished  scream  for  pity. 
Before  us  all  Dreyfus  tore  his  very  heart  out. 
He  was  no  corpse.  Henceforth  all  knew 
what  he  was  and  what  he  had  endured — was 
still  enduring.  In  six  words  he  told  us  all 
the  story  of  the  man  from  Devil's  Island. 

A  shiver,  half  excitement,  half  pain,  raced 
through  every  soul  in  the  hall — except  one — 


MERCIER.  85 

the  Grand  Inquisitor's.  The  echoes  died 
away,  and  we  heard  the  monotone,  unwarmed, 
unhastened,  "  I  should  be  the  first  to  repair 
my  error"-— "It  is  your  duty,"  roared 
Dreyfus,  in  that  same  heart-splitting  voice. 
The  monotone  went  on — "  but  I  say  in  all 
conscience  that  my  conviction  of  his  guilt  is 
as  firm  and  unshakeable  as  ever." 
God,  what  a  m — .  No  ;  not  a  man. 


86  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS, 


VI. 

A  SHOT  IN  THE  STREET. 

MERCIER  was  the  spirit  of  darkness ;  but 
there  was  also  a  spirit  of  light.  Nearest  to 
the  audience  of  the  four  robed  figures  on  the 
Counsels'  Bench  was  a  young  man  of  great 
stature  and  size.  As  he  sat  loosely  on  his 
chair,  hitched  his  gown  up  on  to  his 
shoulders,  leaned  forward  to  listen,  or 
heaved  himself  back  to  loll,  every  motion 
had  a  vast  sweep  and  embodied  easy  power. 
When  he  stood  he  was  a  clear  head  above 
most  men  in  court.  His  blue  eyes  looked 
out  from  under  bushy  brows — clear,  big, 
honest  eyes  like  a  dog's.  A  light  brown 
beard,  neither  very  trim  nor  shapeless,  and 
light  brown  hair  just  beginning  to  roll  over 
his  brow,  tempered  strength  with  a  look  of 
bluff  kindliness.  If  Mercier  was  an  In- 
quisitor, this  sunny-faced  giant  was  a  Viking. 


A  SHOT  IN  THE  STREET.        87 

It  was  Labori,  the  great  cross-examiner. 
Since  he  defended  Zola  he  had  given  himself 
heart  and  soul  to  the  cause  of  Dreyfus. 
Perhaps  his  skill  in  eliciting  reluctant  truths 
was  piqued  at  the  persistence  of  a  mystery 
unfathomed  ;  certainly  his  fighting  spirit  was 
roused  by  contumely  to  unsparing  hostility. 
When  first  he  had  risen  on  the  Saturday  to 
cross-examine,  his  voice  was  agreeable,  yet 
seemed  too  soft,  too  liquid  for  the  man.  But 
the  moment  he  approached  a  point,  a  dis- 
tinction, an  admission,  it  hardened  and  rang 
like  steel.  In  anger,  you  knew,  he  could 
roar  out  of  that  great  chest  like  a  bull.  If 
any  champion  could  plunge  into  the  black 
Hades,  choke  lies  and  errors  and  ignorance, 
and  probe  out  the  truth,  it  was  surely 
Labori. 

Saturday  had  ended  with  storm  in  the  air. 
Dreyfus's  cry  had  filled  all  with  electricity. 
At  the  last  moment  Casimir-Perier  de- 
manded to  be  confronted  with  Mercier  on 
Monday.  On  that  came  a  storm  of  hoots 
and  hisses  from  the  more  violent  journalists 
as  Mercier  left  the  court.  On  that,  a  savage 
altercation  between  an  officer  and  a  Drey- 


88  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

fusard  on  the  very  steps  of  the  Lyc6e,  a 
tumult  of  Vive  tarmte  as  Mercier  passed 
down  the  street,  and  three  boys  groaning 
A  das  les  Juifs,  with  five  hundred  sympa- 
thisers looking  on.  And  on  Monday  Labori 
was  to  cross-examine  Mercier !  Curiosity 
was  aflare. 

Monday  morning  broke  cloudy  with  a  wel- 
come promise  of  rain.  I  reached  the  court 
punctually  at  a  minute  to  half-past  six  and 
was  going  in.  A  stamping  behind  me,  a 
heavy  rush  past- — and  our  esteemed  Pre- 
sident of  the  Press  tore  through  the  line, 
scattered  the  soldiers  of  the  guard  like  a 
bolting  horse,  leaped  into  the  hall,  bounded 
on  to  a  table.  "Doctor,  come  quick," 
he  roared,  "to  a  wounded  man.  It  is 
Labori." 

Half  a  dozen  of  us  are  out  in  the  street 
again  running  for  our  lives.  I  hear  panting 
exclamations  all  about  me.  "Labori!" 
"  Two  revolver  shots ! "  Alone  in  the 
middle  of  the  street  pounds  a  fat  little  man, 
his  fists  up  to  his  chest,  and  talks  all  to 
himself :  "  Assassin,  assassin,  assassin  !  "  he 
exclaims.  A  couple  of  mounted  gendarmes 


A  SHOT  IN  THE  STREET.        89 

break  through  the  hurrying  crowd  at  a  sharp 
trot 

There  is  a  blackening  knot  on  the  canal- 
bank  near  a  little  bridge.  On  the  fringe  is 
the  head  of  the  Suret6  Publique — a  kind  of 
detective  political  police — who  enjoys,  as  his 
calling  demands,  the  faculty  of  being  every- 
where at  the  same  time.  A  group  of 
journalists  are  eagerly  questioning  a  grey  old 
peasant,  shovel  on  shoulder ;  he  saw  the 
deed,  and  now  trembles  to  find  himself 
required  by  the  law.  I  saw  a  young  Jew  in 
tears.  But  most  pressed  to  the  centre  of  the 
knot,  where  a  woman  in  a  black-and-white 
summer  gown  was  supporting  something  on 
her  knee. 

There  lay  the  splendid  Labori  like  a 
broken  tower.  One  instant  had  wrecked  the 
deep-chested  Viking  lawyer ;  lying  wounded 
he  looked  no  longer  hugely  powerful,  but 
only  bulky.  A  mattress  was  beside  him,  but 
he  lay  on  the  gravel  footpath.  His  clothes 
were  grimed  as  yellow  with  dust  as  if  he  had 
worked  in  it  for  a  long  day.  There  was 
little  blood,  if  any,  which  seemed  ominous  of 
inward  bleeding,  which  usually  means  lungs 


90     THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

and  death.  He  lay  on  his  side  with  one  arm 
round  his  wife  and  his  head  on  her  lap,  she 
stroking  his  hair  the  while.  From  time  to 
time  he  rolled  the  wide  dog's  eyes  upward 
and  said  a  few  words,  faint  but  quite  com- 
posed. 

The  assailant  was  gone  out  of  the  town, 
they  said,  and  across  country.  The  wounded 
man  was  about  to  be  taken  back  to  his  house 
on  a  stretcher.  There  was  nothing  more  to 
do  but  go  back  to  the  trial.  But  it  was  just 
adjourning  after  hearing  of  the  crime,  and  in 
a  moment  the  gravel  court  of  the  Lycee  was 
b^ack  and  red  and  gold  with  officers  and 
journalists  and  public,  all  talking  fiercely. 
Next  minute  all  were  rushing  back  into  the 
hall ;  an  eminent  novelist  was  about  to 
assault  the  editor  of  a  leading  newspaper. 
But  gendarmes  interposed  and  straightway 
disarmed  everybody  of  every  walking-stick 
and  umbrella  in  the  place. 

I  saw  half  a  dozen  bearded  men  on  the 
edge  of  tears.  As  often  as  anybody  came 
in  from  outside  there  was  a  rush :  one 
moment  the  square  was  all  twos  and  threes, 
the  next  it  was  empty  but  for  one  big  black 


A  SHOT  IN  THE  STREET.        91 

swarm.  The  first  news  said  that  Labori  was 
spitting  blood.  But  presently  came  the 
rumour  that  it  was  little  or  nothing.  The 
ball,  presumably  backed  only  with  a  few 
grains  of  bad  powder,  had  apparently  lodged 
in  the  muscle  of  the  back.  If  that  was  so, 
it  was  only  a  matter  of  days  before  we  saw 
him  in  court  again. 

So  now  back  into  court  for  our  sensational 
morning.  The  President  enters  amid  the 
usual  clatter  of  arms,  and  says  a  few  appro- 
priate words.  It  is  surprising  how  the  very 
appearance  of  the  little  old  colonel  with  the 
big  white  moustache  makes  for  calm.  This 
is  only  the  third  day  we  have  seen  him  ;  but 
we  have  never  seen  him  other  than  cool 
and  impartial,  full  of  dignity,  tact,  and  good 
temper,  courteous  at  all  times,  and  firm 
when  he  must.  The  session  is  resumed. 

And  then,  alas !  we  find  that  we  have  lost 
our  best  man.  Me.  Labori  is  a  fighter, 
and  his  cross-examination  of  General 
Mercier  would  have  been  in  any  case  a 
great  duel,  possibly  have  thrown  light  on 
the  case.  In  his  absence  the  devil  seems 
to  have  gone  out  of  everybody.  Me. 


92     THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

Demange's  cross-examination  is  damaging, 
may  be,  but  it  is  always  heavy.  His 
method  is  to  make  a  short— sometimes  not  a 
short— speech  explaining  what  he  is  going 
to  ask,  and  then  to  ask  it.  Meanwhile  the 
witness  is  making  up  his  answering  speech  ; 
and  while  he  is  delivering  it,  Maltre  Demange 
is  making  up  his  next  speech— and  so  on  for 
ever  and  ever. 

The  famous  confrontation  of  Mercier  and 
Casimir-Perier  goes  off  just  as  tamely.     This 
is  a  famous  device  of  French  law,  to  hear  two 
witnesses  contradictorily,  as  they  call  it.    Ap- 
parently the  idea  is  that  a  man  who  told  a  lie 
when  another  man  was  sitting  behind  him  will 
tell  the  truth  when  he  is  standing  beside  him. 
So  the  ex-President  and  the  ex-Minister  of 
War   stand   up    and    make    alternate   short 
speeches.     You  can  only  see  their  backs— 
the  General  tall  and  erect  in  his  black  tunic 
and  crimson  trousers,  with  his  curious  narrow 
cropped  head  ;  M.  Casimir-Perier  short,  but 
equally  erect,  in  a  frock-coat  and  shepherd's- 
plaid,  with  his  head  curiously  broad  and  flat 
at  the  top.     They  look  like  two  schoolboys 
competing  for  a  prize.    You  surmise  that  the 


A  SHOT  IN  THE  STREET.        93 

civilian  will  get  it ;  his  intonation  is  clear  and 
his  declamation  rhythmical,  while  the  soldier 
preserves  his  passionless  monotone.  But,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  each  denies  what  the  other 
says  and  admits  nothing. 

But  what  is  the  result  of  it  all  ?  You  sud- 
denly wake  up  to  the  fact  that  it  has  nothing 
whatever  to  do  with  the  case.  Whether 
Dreyfus  communicated  to  a  foreign  Power 
documents  concerning  the  national  defence 
has  suddenly  become  a  side  issue.  The 
question  has  become  quite  different.  In 
January,  1894,  did  Mercier  treat  Casimir- 
Perier  cavalierly,  and  was  Casimir-Perier 
right  to  resign  ?  They  cease  even  to  pretend 
to  know  anything  about  Dreyfus,  and  are 
fighting  each  in  the  interests  of  his  own  self- 
satisfaction.  And  President  and  counsel  and 
spectators  all  seem  to  think  it  the  most 
natural  procedure  in  the  world. 

Then  come  more  witnesses,  and  you  ob- 
serve with  amazement  that  not  a  single  word 
that  any  of  them  says  can  be  called  evidence. 
They  come  in — take  the  oath,  sit  down  if 
they  are  not  feeling  very  strong,  and  then 
sail  off  into  an  interminable  speech,  each  on 


94     THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

the  subject  of  himself— what  he  did,  what  he 
thinks,  what  he  heard  tell,  what  he  heard 
somebody  say  he  heard  somebody  else  tell. 
They  go  on  till  they  stop ;  then  somebody 
asks  a  question,  and  they  begin  all  over  again 
—like  alarm  clocks  when  you  think  they  have 
run  down  and  rashly  touch  them. 

Here  is  an  example  of  French  methods 
of  evidence.  The  officer  who  was  with 
Dreyfus  on  the  day  of  his  degradation, 
Captain  Lebrun- Renault,  has  asserted  that 
the  condemned  man  made  a  confession.  A 
confession,  of  course,  is  evidence  everywhere, 
but  everybody  knows  that  false  confessions 
of  crime  are  not  rare  ;  therefore,  in  English 
law  even  a  confession  requires  confirmation. 
In  this  case  the  confession  is  disputed. 

It  is  not  pretended  that  anybody  else 
now  alive  heard  Dreyfus.  Yet  almost  every 
witness  up  to  now  had  discussed  this  alleged 
confession.  First  the  President  questioned 
Dreyfus  himself  on  it.  Dreyfus  denied  it. 
Next  M.  Casimir-Perier  deposed  that 
Captain  Lebrun- Renault  had  said  nothing 
about  the  matter  to  him.  Next  General 
Mercier  deposed  that  he  told  Captain  Lebrun- 


A  SHOT  IN  THE  STREET.        95 

Renault  to  tell  M.  Casimir-Perier  about  it. 
Next  these  two  witnesses  were  heard  in  con- 
tradiction. The  ex-Minister  of  War  said 
that  General  Gonse  heard  him  tell  the 
Captain  to  tell  the  President ;  the  ex-Pre- 
sident said  that  M.  Dupuy  had  told  him  that 
Captain  Lebrun-Renault  did  not  tell  him, 
'Dupuy,  that  he  told  him,  Casimir-Perier. 
M.  Cavaignac  went  into  the  same  incident 
at  great  length.  He  said  that  General  Gonse 
wrote  to  him  that  Captain  Lebrun-Renault 
told  him,  Gonse,  that  he,  Lebrun-Renault, 
heard  Dreyfus  confess.  This  jungle  of 
pronouns  is  what  the  French  seem  to  call 
evidence.  And  when  you  have  struggled 
through  it  you  hear  that  Captain  Lebrun- 
Renault  is  to  be  called  himself  to  give 
his  own  evidence  in  Dreyfus's  presence  and 
to  be  cross-examined  upon  it  !  What  a 
trial  ! 

The  witness  of  whom  most  was  expected 
on  this  Monday  was  M.  Cavaignac.  Unlike 
Mercier,  Cavaignac  was  at  least  open  and 
above-board.  He  is  the  good  boy  of  French 
politics — a  toy  Brutus  who  has  lived  on  his 
reputation  for  integrity  ever  since  at  school 


96  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

he  refused  to  take  his  prize  from  the  son  of 
the  Emperor  who  imprisoned  his  father. 
This  profession  of  honest  man  leads  to  high 
eminence  in  the  Chamber  of  Deputies — the 
more  so  in  that  Cavaignac  has  almost  a 
monopoly  of  it.  He  is  the  housemaid  who 
sweeps  up  all  the  scandals  of  France.  When 
every  public  man  but  half-a-dozen  had  dirtied 
his  fingers  in  Panama,  Cavaignac  was  the 
man  to  restore  public  confidence  in  public 
honesty.  When  Billot  had  succeeded 
Mercier,  and  the  Dreyfus  case  had  become 
worse  tangled  than  ever,  and  the  General 
Staff  and  the  War  Office  were  suspect — who 
but  Cavaignac  could  go  to  the  Ministry  of  War 
and  vouch  for  them  ?  To  the  outsider  he  is 
a  tiresome  prig,  with  his  eternal  protestations 
of  Roman  virtue  ;  and  he  looks  it,  with  his 
narrow,  stooping  chest,  his  narrow,  pedant's 
head,  his  little  moustache,  and  the  close- 
cropped  short  side-whiskers  on  his  cheek 
bones.  But  to  France  it  is  an  obvious 
god-send  to  have  one  of  her  public  men 
who  can  be  relied  upon  to  tell  the 
truth.  Cavaignac  duly  went  to  the  Ministry 
of  War  and  announced  that  Dreyfus  was 


A  SHOT  IN  THE  STREET.       97 

guilty.  Cavaignac  said  so :  France  was 
reassured  at  once.  Presently  Cavaignac  got 
up  in  the  Chamber  and  read  a  letter  from  one 
military  attache  to  another  proving  that 
Dreyfus  was  a  traitor  :  France  had  it  posted 
up  on  the  walls  of  every  commune  in  the 
country.  And  then — one  day  it  was  known 
that  the  letter  was  a  forgery  and  that  its 
author,  the  chief  stand-by  of  the  General 
Staff  in  its  fight  against  Dreyfus,  was  in 
prison  with  his  throat  cut.  And  the  mystery 
was  that  Cavaignac  still  said  Dreyfus  was 
guilty.  The  discovery  of  Henry's  forgery, 
whereof  he  himself  extorted  confession  and 
instantly  acknowledged  it,  was  the  strongest 
confirmation  of  his  famous  integrity.  But 
this  time  France  doubted.  His  heart  re- 
mained unimpeachable  :  only  what  about  his 
head  ? 

Now  came  Cavaignac  into  court  at  Rennes 
to  set  all  doubt  to  rest.  He  stood  up  before 
the  Council  of  War,  stretched  forth  the  hand 
and  harangued  it  as  if  it  had  been  the 
Chamber  of  Deputies.  Frankly  and  clearly 
he  told  them  everything.  He  told  every- 
thing— and  he  told  nothing.  Not  one  single 

H 


98  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

revelation  to  satisfy  the  world  of  Dreyfus's 

guilt only  an  argument   such  as  any  man 

who  knew  a  little  of  the  French  army  could 
have   made  quite  as  well.      It  was  a  good 
argument— clear,   cogent,   everything  except 
convincing— and    to   the    impartial    mind    it 
disposed  for  ever  of  the  superstition  that  a 
man    could    not    honestly   believe    Dreyfus 
guilty.     Cavaignac  proved  that  Dreyfus  was 
in  an  exceptionally  good  position  to  know  all 
the  secrets  detailed  in  the  intercepted  cover- 
ing-letter.    Very  few  officers  in  the  French 
army  are  able  to  betray  the  information  that 
was   betrayed;    none  were   more   able  than 
Dreyfus.      To  be  evidence  to  hang  a  man 
and   worse,    this   demonstration,    to   Anglo- 
Saxon  ideas,  should  have  gone  further,  and 
shown  that  none  other  was  able  to  betray 
these  secrets  at  all.    It  established  Cavaignac's 
good  faith  and  makes  it  easy  to  believe  in 
other  men's ;  it  explained,  maybe,  why  Dreyfus 
was   accused.      But  it  did  not  explain  why 
he  was,  or  ever  should  be,  convicted. 

The  whole  day  was  a  procession  of  ex- 
Ministers— mostly  generals.  The  first  of  the 
series  was  General  Billot,  a  globular  general 


A  SHOT  IN  THE  STREET.        99 

with  a  very  white  head  and  moustache,  and 
an  expression  bearing  something  of  the 
benevolent  ferocity  of  a  plump  and  elderly 
bulldog.  He  suggested  the  harmless  terrors 
of  a  general  in  a  comic  opera.  He  seemed 
to  be  saying,  "  The  army's  going  to  the 
devil,  sir  ;  pass  the  port !  "  What  he  really 
did  was  to  give  an  extended  history  of  the 
Dreyfus  case  and  his  own  views  of  it.  Next 
came  a  rosy,  brisk,  really  soldierly  soldier — 
General  Zurlinden.  He  was  remarkable  in 
that  he  stood  up  to  give  evidence,  and  in 
answer  to  a  question  he  responded  simply, 
"  No  "-—the  first  monosyllabic  answer  of  the 
trial.  Then  a  very  elderly,  white-bearded 
general — Chanoine — who  looked  like  a  Non- 
conformist Member  of  Parliament  appearing 
in  uniform  at  a  Covent  Garden  ball  ;  nobody 
knows  what,  if  anything,  he  said.  Then  M. 
Hanotaux,  who  gave  a  brief  lecture  on  the 
duty  of  a  Foreign  Minister. 

The  only  person  who  appeared  to  bear  the 
Dreyfus  case  in  mind  was  Dreyfus.  From 
time  to  time  he  made  protestations  in  a 
thick  and  colourless  voice — always  protesta- 
tions of  innocence.  After  that  one  moment's 

H  2 


ioo  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

explosion,  the  upheaval  of  a  continent  of 
passion,  he  had  ribbed  himself  in  his  reserve 
again.  He  was  again  the  automaton  that 
could  speak  but  one  word — innocent,  inno- 
cent, innocent ! 


101 


VII. 

ROGET. 

THE  day  on  which  Me.  Labor!  was  shot  was 
an  eventful  one  for  me.  At  the  close  of  the 
sitting  I  saw  my  first  genuine,  unmistakable 
manifestant. 

The  evidence  was  just  over,  and  the  quays 
along  both  sides  of  the  river  were  sprinkled 
with  the  usual  motley  of  gendarmes,  jour- 
nalists, newspaper  boys,  and  generals,  with 
here  and  there  a  citizen  of  Rennes.  All  of  a 
sudden  I  heard,  quite  distinct  and  quite  close, 
the  words,  "A  das  la  calotte!"  It  means 
"  Down  with  the  tonsure  !  " — that  is  to  say, 
with  the  priests.  I  whipped  round  and 
beheld  a  young  working  man  in  mustard- 
coloured  clothes,  listening,  with  modest  self- 
satisfaction,  to  the  echoes  of  his  own  excla- 
mation. Others  had  heard,  too,  for  when  he 
moved  slowly  up  the  street  he  was  followed 
by  about  five  hundred  people. 


IO2  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

For  a  time  he  went  quietly,  and  I  feared 
that  the  active  manifestation  was  over  for 
the  day.  But  suddenly  a  steam  tram  came 
snorting  and  shrieking  along  the  opposite 
quay.  When  he  saw  it  the  manifestant 
became  another  man.  His  eyes  blazed,  his 
face  squeezed  itself  all  into  the  middle  ;  he 
turned  his  head  towards  the  tram,  and,  in  a 
voice  choked  with  fury,  screamed  three 
times,  "A  has  la  calotte  f"  Then  he  looked 
back  with  the  same  modest  pride,  and, 
behold,  five  gendarmes  were  trotting  slowly 
up  to  clear  the  street !  At  that  he  dived 
down  a  byway,  and  the  day's  manifestation 
was  over. 

O,  yes,  we  shall  have  new  dangers  to 
talk  over  when  we  leave  the  good  town  of 
Rennes  !  Assassins  ?  Why,  bless  you,  every 
other  man  you  meet  is  one — at  least,  the 
other  side  generally  call  him  one,  by  word 
of  mouth  or  in  print,  directly  or  by  implica- 
tion ;  and  the  other  side  ought  to  know. 
Rennes  held  many  an  anxious  heart  on 
Assumption  Day,  which  followed  Monday's 
sitting.  The  assailant  of  Me.  Labori  had 
not  been  caught,  which  meant,  of  course, 


ROGET.  IO3 

that  he  had  friends  and  sympathisers,  for 
otherwise  he  must  have  gone  somewhere  for 
food.  The  theft  of  Me.  Labori's  letters  as 
he  lay  on  the  ground  looked  like  a  plot.  In 
default  of  the  real  criminal  somebody  at 
every  street  corner  was  calling  somebody  on 
the  other  side  an  assassin.  As  you  know, 
it  is  the  favourite  word  of  France.  When 
we  returned  from  court  that  morning 
Jewish  ladies  were  waiting  at  the  doors  of 
the  hotel  to  make  sure  that  no  assassin  had 
assassinated  their  husbands.  They  told  each 
other  with  shaking  lips  that  the  lower 
quarters,  inflamed  by  cider — far  weaker  than 
lager  beer — were  contemplating  a  massacre 
of  Jews ;  it  was  felt  that  there  were  too 
many  of  them,  and  that  they  gave  themselves 
airs.  They  remembered,  with  palpitations, 
that  it  was  less  than  a  week  to  the  St. 
Bartholomew. 

An  eminent  novelist  went  up  to  an 
eminent  anti-Semite  and  remarked,  "  As- 
sassin !  Your  face  displeases  me.  Assassin  ! 
I  give  you  five  minutes  to  leave  this  hotel. 
Assassin  !  "  The  anti-Semite,  who  happens 
to  be  a  Jew  himself,  went  to  the  Prefect  and 


104  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

asked   for   protection.     "  Perfectly,"    replied 
the  high-minded  official ;  "it  is  my  duty  to 
protect  every  law-abiding  citizen,  irrespective 
of  party,  race,  sex,  or  creed.      I  shall  do  my 
duty.     But,"  added  M.  le  PreTet,   "  it  would 
be  wrong  for  me  to  disguise  from  you  that 
my  authority  stops  at  the  door  of  your  hotel." 
Then,  "  By  the  way,"  he  went  on  pleasantly, 
"  when  do   you  count   to   leave    Rennes  ? " 
"  To-morrow."    "  Then  let  me  advise  you,  as 
a  man  of  well  known  law-abiding  tendencies, 
considering    the     emotion     aroused    by   the 
odious     attempt    at    assassination     of    this 
morning,  to — to — advance  the  day  of  your 
departure   by  a  day."     And   he    did.     The 
novelist,  a  much  bigger  man,  accompanied 
him   to  the  door,  shouting  "  Assassin  !  "  on 
to  the  top  of  his  head  ;  and  Rennes  saw  that 
defender  of  the  honour  of  the  army  no  more. 
But  August    1 5th  was  Assumption    Day, 
and  Assumption    Day  cleared   the   air.     It 
was,  of  course,   a  holiday ;  and  when   next 
morning  we  went  again  to  the  familiar  hall 
of  the   Lyc6e,    Rennes  was    its    dear,    old, 
sleepy  self  again.     When  we  went  in,  it  had 
not  as  yet  got  up  ;'  when  we  came  out  it  was 


ROGET.  IO5 

enjoying  its  siesta ;  by  the  time  its  siesta  was 
well  over  it  was  its  dinner-time,  and  then  its 
bed-time. 

No  excitement  was  expected  in  court,  and 
it  turned  out  rather  less  than  was  expected. 
It  was  in  the  true  Rennais  spirit  that  the 
proceedings  opened  with  a  motion  for 
adjournment.  The  idea  was  to  go  on  with  a 
series  of  forty-eight  hour  adjournments  until 
Me.  Labori  could  be  in  court  again.  But  the 
Court  said  No,  and,  though  the  Dreyfusards 
raged,  the  Court  was  doubtless  right.  Cer- 
tainly Me.  Labori's  absence  did  cripple  the 
defence,  for  Me.  Demagne  as  a  cross- 
examiner  is  more  ponderous  than  ponderosity. 
Still  there  was,  so  far,  no  evidence,  in  an 
English  sense,  to  cross-examine.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  was  plainly  to  the  public 
interest — what  with  plots  in  Paris  and  arrests 
and  anti-Semites  fortifying  themselves  with 
revolvers  and  2000  bottles  of  St.  Galmier 
water — to  bring  these  explosive  days  to  an 
end. 

Towards  this  end  we  made,  on  the  i6th, 
some  advance,  but  not  much.  The  first 
witness  was  an  ex- Minister  of  Justice, 


io6  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

M.   Guerin.      He  was  apparently  called  on 
the  principle  that  any  French  statesman  of 
Cabinet  rank — which  I  reckon  to  be  about 
seventy-five  per  cent,  of    them — is  entitled, 
along  with  his  pension,  to  come  into  court 
and  give  his  views  on  the  Dreyfus  case,  or 
on  any  other  subject,  preferably  himself.   Next 
came  M.   Andre   Lebon,  ex-Minister  of  the 
Colonies,    whom    they    call    the   torturer   of 
Dreyfus.      He  was  a  well  set-up,  capable- 
looking   man,    with    long,    drooping,    yellow 
whiskers,  and  you  would  call  him  very  unlike 
torturing  anybody.      He  had  much  to  say  of 
projects  for  rescuing  Dreyfus,  which  may  or 
may   not   have    existed    outside    the    Gallic 
imagination,   and   he  admitted  that  he  had 
ordered  Dreyfus  in  irons  while  they  improved 
his    palisade.       He    had    been    a   brute,    no 
doubt,  vicariously  ;  yet  he  left  a  clean  im- 
pression behind  him. 

By  way  of  pendant  to  Lebon  they  read 
out  the  official  report  about  Dreyfus  on 
Devil's  Island.  It  was  formal  and  colourless, 
and  I  think  it  was  the  most  pathetic  docu- 
ment I  ever  heard.  Up  to  September,  1896, 
when  there  was  a  false  alarm  of  a  rescue, 


ROGET.  107 

Dreyfus  was  treated  with  comparative  mild- 
ness. After  that  he  was  put  in  irons  for 
forty-four  nights,  while  a  double  palisade  was 
built  about  his  cell,  which  he  never  left ;  it 
was  so  high  that  he  could  not  look  over  it  at 
the  sea.  On  June  6th,  1897,  an  English 
brig  appeared  off  the  Island  and  was  fired  on 
with  blank.  At  the  first  sound  Dreyfus 
started  up,  but  immediately  sank  down  again 
and  lay  quite  still.  His  self-control  saved 
his  life,  for  the  gaoler  had  orders  to  shoot 
him  if  he  tried  to  escape.  After  that  they 
moved  him  to  another  hut,  also  completely 
isolated  by  a  high  palisade.  It  was  divided 
by  an  iron  grill  into  two  halves :  in  one  was 
a  warder  who  never  took  his  eyes  off  Dreyfus 
day  or  night.  He  was  forbidden  to  speak  to 
his  warder  except  when  asking  for  something. 

Truly  heartrending  is  the  dry  record  of 
what  Dreyfus  said.  On  July  2nd,  1895, 
when  he  had  been  on  the  Island  nearly  four 
months,  he  was  asked  how  he  was. 

"  I   am  well  for  the  moment,"  he  replied. 
"  It  is  my  heart  that  is  sick.     Nothing  " 
and  here  he  broke   down    and  wept    for  a 
quarter  of  an  hour.      On  August  I5th,  1895, 


io8  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

he  said,  "  Colonel  Du  Paty  de  Clam  pro- 
mised me,  before  I  left  France,  to  make 
inquiries  into  the  matter ;  I  should  not  have 
thought  that  they  could  take  so  long.  I 
hope  that  they  will  soon  come  to  a  head." 
They  did  not  come  to  a  head  for  over  four 
years  more  ;  and  it  was  no  fault  of  Colonel 
Du  Paty's  that  they  did  ever.  On  August 
3ist  he  wept  on  receiving  no  letter  from  his 
family,  and  said,  "  For  ten  months  now  I  have 
been  suffering  horrors."  Two  days  later  he 
was  taken  with  a  sudden  burst  of  sobbing,  and 
said,  "It  cannot  last  long  ;  my  heart  will  end 
by  breaking."  He  always  wept  when  he 
received  his  letters.  A  year  later  he  said, 
"  I  can  only  think  with  excessive  pain  in  the 
head,  and  I  cannot  read  my  wife's  letters  a 
second  time."  Most  of  the  days  he  spent 
sitting  in  the  shade  with  a  book  in  his  hands ; 
sometimes  he  was  heard  to  sob,  and  often 
seen  to  hide  his  tears.  He  begged  very 
earnestly  to  be  allowed  a  medicine  case, 
"  For,"  said  he,  "I  am  an  expiatory  victim, 
and  I  claim  the  right  to  put  an  end  to  it 
at  my  own  moment.  Sometimes  my  head 
bursts,  my  heart  splits,  and  I  fear  madness." 


ROGET.  109 

Altogether  he  wrote  over  a  thousand  letters 
in  his  four  years — to  his  wife,  his  brother, 
his  son,  the  President,  the  Ministers,  General 
de  Boisdeffre  —  anybody.  His  correspon- 
dence and  that  of  his  family  was  so  affecting 
that  the  commandant  forbade  the  warders  to 
read  it,  lest  they  should  relax  the  rigour  of 
their  guard  over  him. 

Next,  amid  emotion — which  means  that 
many  stood  on  the  forms  and  the  rest  on  the 
tables,  and  all  sh-h-h-ed  for  silence  till  the 
room  was  like  a  serpent-house — came  Mme. 
Veuve  Henry.  But  emotion  was  wasted. 
Dressed  in  deep  black,  neither  tall  nor 
short,  neither  beautiful  nor  ugly,  Mme. 
Henry  was  neither  an  avenging  fury  nor  a 
forgiving  angel.  The  only  distinguished 
feature  of  her  evidence  was  a  curious  trick  of 
beating  time  with  her  thumb.  For  the  rest 
it  had  to  do  with  the  late  Colonel  Henry  and 
his  wife,  as  M.  Gudrin's  evidence  had  to 
do  with  M.  Gu6rin  and  M.  Lebon's  with 
M.  Lebon ;  but  on  the  question  whether 
Dreyfus  had  delivered  the  documents  enu- 
merated in  the  bordereau  it  had  no  bearing 
whatever. 


i  io  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

That  was  the  one  question  which  as  yet 
no  evidence  had  directly  touched.  And, 
what  is  more,  no  evidence  seemed  likely  to 
touch  it. 

General  Roget,  the  next  witness,  was 
an  excellent  example  of  the  methods  of  the 
prosecution.  He  gave  the  impression  of 
very  much  higher  ability  than  the  colleagues 
who  had  preceded  him.  Though  he  is  only 
three  years  above  fifty,  his  hair  is  grey- 
white  and  his  forehead  bare.  Short,  but 
broadly  built,  and  of  elastic  carriage,  the 
combination  of  a  large,  sloping  brow,  of  a 
white  moustache  with  the  waxed  ends  turned 
towards  his  ears,  and  of  shoulders  held  back 
from  a  slightly  protuberant  stomach  gives 
the  impression  that  he  is  always  leaning 
backwards,  even  when  he  stands  most  upright. 
It  gives  him  something  of  the  bearing  of  an 
opera  singer,  and  he  has  a  ready  instinct  for 
an  elegant  pose,  His  voice  is  pleasant — "  a 
pretty  tribune  voice,"  as  the  local  paper  put 
it :  "he  rolls  agreeably  the  rs."  His  carriage 
is  jaunty,  his  smile  ready,  his  features  good, 
his  complexion  clear.  He  ought  to  produce 
an  attractive,  soldierly  effect — only  somehow 


ROGET.  Ill 

he  does  not.  The  features  are  good  indi- 
vidually, but  they  do  not  make  a  good  face. 
Perhaps  it  is  the  backward-pointed  moustache 
that  seems  to  lend  him  a  perpetual  sneer ; 
perhaps  the  carriage  is  a  little  artificially 
genial ;  somehow  the  ears  seem  unpleasantly 
prominent  and  pointed.  General  Roget  has 
the  air  of  a  white  Mephistopheles. 

He  had  not  been  directly  concerned  with 
the  Dreyfus  case  in  its  early  stages,  having 
made  a  study  of  it  only  at  the  time  of  the 
Zola  trial.  On  the  strength  of  this  study  he 
was  appointed  Chief  of  the  War  Minister's 
Cabinet  on  July  8th,  1898,  and  held  that 
office  under  M.  Cavaignac  and  General 
Zurlinden.  Therefore  he  was  not  in  any  way 
tied  to  defend  acts  of  his  own  ;  at  the  same 
time  he  owed  his  promotion  to  his  activity  in 
the  case  and  might  expect  to  gain  more.  In 
both  ways  he  was  likely  to  be  the  strongest 
advocate  the  prosecution  would  bring  for- 
ward. 

He  ran  quickly  up  the  platform  steps  and 
began.  He  had  delivered  an  exhaustive 
review  of  the  case  to  the  Cour  de  Cassation ; 
but  you  could  recognise  the  advocate  in  that, 


ii2  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

instead  of  repeating  it  as  the  others  did,  he 
began  with  the  question  of  the  hour.     He  set 
himself  to  destroy  the  confessions  of  Ester- 
hazy — no  difficult   matter,  seeing   that   they 
mutually  destroy  each  other.     ' '  Every  version 
is  false, "he  concluded,  "and  yet  I  should  not 
be  the  least  surprised  to  see  him    come   to 
this  bar  before  the  end  of  the  trial  and  pro- 
pound   another."      He    then    threw    off    a 
short  passage  to  discredit    Judge    Bertulus, 
who  would  be  the  next  witness  and   would 
favour  the  defence.      He  touched   slightly, 
supplementing  Mercier,  on  the  secret  dossier. 
He  enlarged  on  the  possibility  that  Dreyfus 
could  have  got  the  plans  of  Nice.     Next,  he 
insisted  especially  on  the  suspicious  denials 
of  Dreyfus  in   1894  and  at  his  interrogatory 
on   the   first    day.     Dreyfus,    urged    Roget, 
neither  explained  nor  discussed.     He  denied 
knowledge   of    the    plans   of  concentration, 
though  he  had  drawn   maps  from   memory 
at  the  General  Staff  showing  particulars  for 
each   army.     He   denied    having    seen   the 
firing  manual,  although  Colonel  Jeannel  was 
ready  to  swear  he  had  lent  him  one,  and  he 
could  have  admitted  this  with  perfect  safety. 


ROGET.  113 

And  certainly  this  has  been  a  strong  point 
against  Dreyfus.  He  has  denied  so  much 
and  so  mechanically  that  it  is  hard  to  acquit 
him  of  lying.  He  may  have  thought  he  was 
in  a  trap,  and  the  less  he  admitted  the  better 
chance  to  get  out  of  it.  But  how  many 
intelligent  men,  while  perfectly  honest,  would 
be  so  short-sighted  ? 

General  Roget  had  finished  his  first  glass 
of  water,  and  poured  out  another.  Presently, 
by  way  of  corollary,  he  pulled  out  his  hand- 
kerchief and  began  to  mop  his  forehead  and 
neck.  He  was  evidently  exerting  himself 
greatly  to  talk,  to  remember,  to  explain. 
Now  he  attacked  the  bordereau,  beginning 
with  the  note  on  the  hydraulic  brake  of  the 
1 2O-millirnetre  gun.  This  could  not  mean 
the  old  glycerine  brake  of  1883,  which  every- 
body knew ;  it  must  be  the  new  hydro- 
pneumatic  brake,  which  first  enabled  a  gun 
of  this  calibre  to  be  used  as  a  field-piece. 
This  was  so  little  known  that  it  was 
generally,  though  incorrectly,  spoken  of  as 
"  hydraulic  "  even  by  officers  of  artillery.  It 
was  made  at  Bourges  and  was  being  tried 
between  1888  and  1891 — a  period  which 


ii4  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

included  the  time  when  Dreyfus  was  stationed 
there.     Very  few  officers  knew  the  details  of 
it ;  but  it  is  certain,  said  General  Roget,  that 
Dreyfus,  by  conversation  with  them  and  by 
picking  up  what  was  going  on  in  the  foundry, 
could   have   got  information  which  gunners 
would  have  refused  to  an  infantry  officer  like 
Esterhazy.     And  he  added  a  story  showing 
that  in  July,  1894,  Dreyfus  once  talked  with 
such  knowledge  and  intelligence  at  dinner  of 
what  was  being  done  at  Bourges  that  General 
de   Boisdeffre   took   him    apart  after  dinner 
and  walked  with  him  up  and  down  a  bridge 
over  the  Mosel  for  an  hour. 

Touching  lightly  on  the  other   points,  he 
came  finally  to  the  firing-manual  and  care- 
fully analysed  the  paragraph  of  the  bordereau 
that  deals  with  it.     "  This  document  is  ex- 
tremely difficult  to  get,  and  I   can  only  have 
it  a  very  few  days"— it  was  the  easiest  of 
the  five  for  Esterhazy  to  get.     He  could  have 
borrowed  it  from  a  dozen    artillery  officers, 
whereas  there  is  no  evidence  of  his  having 
done  so  ;  while  the  other  documents  he  could 
have  got  only  from  the  General  Staff,  and 
that  on  the  hydro-pneumatic  brake  not  even 


ROGET.  115 

thence.  On  the  other  hand,  Dreyfus  could 
get  the  manual,  but  only  one  of  three  copies 
for  use  among  several  officers,  any  one  of 
whom  might  ask  for  it  at  any  moment. 
"The  Minister  has  sent  a  definite  number 
for  distribution  among  the  corps  "-  —anybody 
but  an  artillery  officer  would  have  said  "  the 
artillery  corps  "  or  "regiments."  "  If  there- 
fore you  wish  to  take  from  it  what  interests 
you . . . " — the  process  here  indicated  takes 
time.  Esterhazy  would  not  know  he  could 
have  the  manual  till  he  got  it,  which  would 
involve  all  the  process  of  writing,  awaiting 
an  answer,  sending  the  manual,  copying  it, 
sending  it  back.  It  was  impossible  for 
Esterhazy  to  have  done  this  between  August 
5th  and  gth,  when  he  was  attending  field- 
firing  at  Chalons ;  Dreyfus  for  his  part 
would  await  Schwarzkoppen's  reply  before 
he  got  the  manual  at  all. 

Thus  strand  by  strand  he  laboured  to 
unwind  the  meshes  from  Esterhazy ;  knot 
by  knot  he  toiled  to  tighten  them  round 
Dreyfus.  He  drank  more  and  more  water, 
the  sweat  broke  out  more  and  more  pro- 
fusely. Roget  was  working  with  terrible 

I    2 


n6  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

earnestness— working   to    destroy    a   life   as 
good    men    work    to    save    one.     Mercier, 
whom  the  prisoner's  exculpation  would  ruin 
for  ever,   showed  cruelty  but  no  bitterness  ; 
Roget,  on  whom  it  would  bring  no  shame, 
sweated   hate   at   every   pore.      He   argued 
carefully,  closely,  pitilessly  ;  but  he  did  more 
than  argue.     His  words  said  much,  his  voice, 
his  manner  said  far  more.     He  accused  him 
of  a  dozen  treacheries  ;  he  implied  a  thousand. 
Listening   hour  by  hour,   day  by  day,  to 
testimony    such    as    this    finished    by    quite 
numbing  the  judgment.      With  every  fresh 
witness  the  cold  mist  of  doubt  settled  thicker 
and  thicker  over  the  whole  affair.     I   came 
to  Rennes  firmly  believing  Dreyfus  innocent ; 
now    I    no    longer    knew   what    I   believed. 
Hour   by   hour,   day  by   day,   the   hope   of 
certainty   receded   further   into    the    shades. 
It  was  all  a  baffling  mystery,  and  a  mystery 
it  seemed   likely   to  remain  till   the  day  of 
judgment.     Listening    to    men  like  Mercier 
and    Cavaignac,   it   was   difficult   to  believe 
they  were    not   honest — at  any  rate,  at  the 
beginning.     Listening  to  men  like  Roget- 
though  he  spoiled  his  case  by  his  violence — > 


ROGET.  I  1 7 

it  was  idle  to  deny  that  there  were  strong 
presumptions  against  the  accused.  So  there 
were  against  Esterhazy — as  strong  perhaps, 
but  not  a  whit  stronger. 

The  sense  of  mystery  became  an  oppres- 
sion. What  was  it  ?  What  did  it  all  mean  ? 
Witnesses  talked  by  the  hour,  and  when  they 
had  done  all  that  remained  was  a  floating 
suspicion  that  there  .  was  something — some- 
thing below  that  they  had  left  unsaid.  Here 
was  the  great  case  which  for  five  years  had 
convulsed  France  and  perplexed  the  world. 
In  its  ultimate  effects  it  will  probably  alter 
the  face  of  Europe.  Some  have  called  it  the 
beginning  of  the  end  of  civilisation.  And 
there  seemed  to  be  nothing  certain  in  it. 
Everybody  had  promised  the  whole  truth  for 
this  final  clearing  of  the  muddle.  And  then 
nothing  came,  nothing  was  known,  and  still 
it  was  impossible  to  believe  that  there  was 
nothing  to  know.  Everything  seemed  pos- 
sible. Every  wild  hypothesis  in  turn 
hardened  from  possibility  to  probability. 
One  hour  there  had  been  a  great  plot  and 
a  ring  of  traitors.  Dreyfus  was  in  it  and 
had  been  sacrificed  to  save  the  others.  The 


n8  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

next,  ambitious  Dreyfus  had  really,  as  he 
is  said  to  have  acknowledged,  given  up 
trumpery  documents  in  the  hope,  Jew-like, 
of  making  a  personal  success  by  bringing 
to  the  Intelligence  Department  some  great 
secret  of  Germany.  Presently  Esterhazy 
was  telling  the  truth  ;  he  had  written  the 
letter  to  Schwarzkoppen,  which  never  went, 
so  as  to  implicate  Dreyfus,  innocent  or  guilty. 
Anon  Dreyfus,  having  been  shunned  and 
tabooed  by  his  brother  officers,  had  rushed 
to  his  revenge  in  treason.  Any  supposition 
was  admissible — and  half  of  them,  even  if 
admitted,  brought  us  no  nearer  a  clear  know- 
ledge of  Dreyfus's  guilt  or  innocence.  Even 
though  military  attaches  and  ambassadors 
came  and  lifted  their  hands  to  the  Christ  and 
swore,  France  would  never  trust  their  testi- 
mony on  such  a  question.  The  case  of 
Dreyfus  seemed  hidden  from  human  know- 
ledge— a  secret  to  be  unwrapped  only  before 
the  Great  White  Throne. 

In  the  meantime  only  one  thing  was  clear, 
and  grew  clearer  every  day  :  innocent  or 
guilty,  traitor  or  victim,  Dreyfus  was  a  man. 

The   first   day   so  stiff  and  jerky,   like  a 


ROGET.  119 

galvanised  corpse,  now  he  moved  in  and  out 
of  the  court  more  elastically,  and  his  gestures 
when  speaking  were  neither  clumsy  nor 
theatrical.  The  first  day  his  voice  was 
cavernous ;  now,  though  still  harsh  and  a 
little  snarling,  it  was  full  of  volume  and 
strength.  The  second  day  General  Mercier 
baited  him  out  of  his  self-control  ;  now  he 
sat  all  day  rigid  and  intent,  and  heard  man 
after  man  call  him  traitor  without  a 
challenge.  The  long  waves  of  accusation 
came  lapping  over  him,  impossible  to  deny, 
yet  more  impossible  to  disprove.  Labori 
was  gone,  and  Demange  inactive ;  yet 
Dreyfus  endured. 

I  believe  he  was  the  only  Frenchman  in 
court — he  to  whom  it  meant  new  life  or  hell 
again — who  followed  the  evidence  with  a 
just  appreciation  of  its  value.  When  they 
asked  what  he  had  to  say  to  M.  Lebon,  he 
replied,  "  I  am  here  to  defend  my  honour 
and  my  children's.  I  shall  not  speak  again  of 
what  happened  on  Devil's  Island."  He  listened 
to  the  awful  narrative  of  his  torments — the 
more  awful  for  the  precise  coldness  of  the 
official  language — damp-eyed  but  unflinching. 


120  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

Finally  came  General  Roget,  raking  him 
for  two  hours  and  a-half  with  insult  and 
insinuation.  Taking  his  hint  from  Mercier's 
apostrophe  and  the  outburst  that  followed, 
Roget  turned  and  spat  the  last  part  of  his 
accusation  full  into  Dreyfus's  face.  He 
faced  towards  Dreyfus,  pointed  at  him, 
underlined  each  damning  innuendo.  A 
turn  of  the  screw — another — a  pause — gently, 
very  gently,  another — a  slackening  of  the 
screw — ah  !  a  sharp  wrench. 

Dreyfus  never  swerved.  At  the  end, 
when  his  turn  came,  he  rose,  and  from  the 
fury  vibrating  in  his  voice  you  could  tell 
how  hard  he  had  been  holding  the  blood 
still  in  his  heart.  But  what  he  said  was 
exactly  what  every  Anglo-Saxon  in  the 
court  had  been  thinking  all  day  long.  "  All 
these  days,"  he  cried,  "  I  have  been  listening 
to  speeches  for  the  prosecution.  I  cannot 
defend  myself."  And  then,  as  always— 
"  innocent." 

He  was  still  the  dead  man  half  alive, 
but  at  least  he  was  becoming  used  to  his 
semi-life  and  commanded  himself.  Yet 
these  days  of  unanswered  accusation  were 


ROGET.  1 2 1 

an  ordeal  and  Dreyfus  himself  was  unearthly. 
At  times  he  seemed   to  be  petrifying  back 
to   living   death    again.     In   every   look   at 
the   hall,   in   every  photograph,   though  the 
place  was  full  of  fine  heads,  the  grey-white 
clay-white    Dreyfus  was  the  only  thing  you 
saw.      The    harsh    profile   with   the   strong 
forehead  and  nose,   with   the   black   bar   of 
moustache   cutting   it   like   the   empty   grin 
of  a  Death's-head,  the  long,  gaunt  jaw  and 
forward-thrusting    chin,  the  naked   cranium, 
half  bald,    half  cropped — it  all  looked  gro- 
tesquely  like    an    illustration    in    a   phren- 
ologist's  shop   window.     Or,   again,    if  you 
saw  his  whole  body,  the  thick  shape  pressed 
closely    into     the     chair,    the    knees    close 
together    and    the    feet     together    bending 
backwards,     reminded    you    of    an    ancient 
Egyptian   statue.     That,    and    the    smooth, 
Oriental  skull,  the  stern,  moveless,   Oriental 
mask — he    might    just    have    come    to    life 
after  sitting  entombed  through  centuries  in 
stone  before  a  temple  of  Thebes  or  Nineveh. 
A  mummied  mage  of  Chaldaea,  the  forgotten 
god  of  a  lost  people — anything  but  a  living 
man  of  the  year  of  Our  Lord  1899. 


122  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 


VIII. 

PlCQUART. 

THE  Court  had  just  undergone  a  severe 
course  of  a  gentleman  named  Bertulus.  He 
is  a  juge  d  instruction,  who  has  accidentally, 
in  the  course  of  his  functions  in  Paris,  got 
himself  enmeshed  in  the  Dreyfus  case.  A 
brisk,  good-looking  little  man,  with  bright 
black  eyes  and  an  enormous  black  moustache, 
he  went  up  to  the  bar  and  began  to  wave  his 
arms  wildly  in  all  directions.  You  would 
have  said  he  was  an  opera-singer  practising 
before  a  pier-glass—only  not  a  single  word 
came.  However,  the  President  appeared  to 
be  looking  at  him  intently,  and  presently  the 
prosecuting  Commissary  was  struck  by  a 
doubt.  Inquiry  hardened  suspicion  into 
certainty:  M.  Bertulus  had  been  giving 
evidence  for  some  time,  and  nobody  but  the 
President  and  the  two  nearest  judges  knew 
it.  He  was  asked  to  begin  again,  and  did 
so  ;  he  also  continued  at  great  length. 


PlCQUART.  123 

At  the  end  he  was  confronted  with  Mme. 
Henry — solely  that  the  lady,  with  outstretched 
thumb,  might  call  him  Judas.  It  is  not  a 
woman  speaking,  she  said :  it  is  the  voice  of 
Colonel  Henry.  It  was  exactly  like  a  scene 
out  of  an  Italian  opera. 

After  that  depressing  experience,  com- 
posedly slouching  up  to  the  bar  in  an  ill- 
fitting  morning  coat,  came  Picquart.  To  the 
Dreyfusard  Picquart  is  the  hero  of  the  piece  ; 
to  seven  French  officers  he  is  a  very  sus- 
picious character.  "His  enemies,"  said  a 
journalist  from  Paris  to  me — "even  his  enemies 
have  never  dared  impute  any  other  motive  to 
him  than  love  of  truth  and  justice."  Two 
minutes  later  I  heard  one  of  his  enemies 
declare  that  he  took  up  the  innocence  of 
Dreyfus  solely  to  ruin  Du  Paty  de  Clam, 
with  whom,  for  reasons  utterly  unprintable, 
he  was  at  bitter  enmity.  To  the  Court,  at 
any  rate,  Picquart  is  the  man  who  has  set  his 
face  like  a  flint  against  his  superior  officers, 
and  spent  months  in  prison  for  trying  to  prove 
them  either  knaves  or  fools. 

Until  he  ran  his  head  upon  the  Dreyfus 
case  three^  years   ago   Picquart   was   almost 


124  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

the  most  promising  soldier  in  France.     An 
Alsatian  from  Strasburg,  he  had  seen  service 
in  Tunis  and    Tongking ;    he  was  major  at 
thirty-two    and    lieutenant-colonel    at    forty. 
He  had  spent  most  of  his  home  service  at 
the  Ecole  de  Guerre  or  on  the  General  Staff. 
He    knows     English,     German,     Austrian, 
Italian,    and     Spanish — an    accomplishment 
almost   supernatural   in  a    Frenchman.      He 
had  enjoyed  the  high  esteem  of  his  chiefs  ; 
there  was  nothing  in  the   French  army  to 
which  he  might  not  reasonably  aspire.     But 
now  he  came  before  the  Court  after  spending 
ten  out  of  the  last  thirteen  months  in  a  secret 
prison.     Neither  as  the   enemy  of  generals 
nor   as    the  successful    staff  officer    was   he 
likely  to  be    popular  with  seven  regimental 
officers :    younger   than  any  member  of  the 
Council,  he  was  actually  senior  in  the  service 
to  all  but  two. 

His  demeanour  was  not  at  all  conciliatory. 
He  approached  with  absolute  calm  on  a 
face  that  bears  no  sign  of  passion  either 
for  good  or  evil :  he  looks — and  looks  as  if 
he  knows  he  looks — the  embodiment  of  pure 
reason.  He  settled  himself  very  carefully 


PlCQUART.  125 

and  lengthily  on  the  witness's  chair,  got  his 
shoulder-blades  comfortably  into  the  back, 
crossed  his  leg  over  his  knee,  and  pulled 
down  his  trousers  over  his  boots.  Then  he 
poured  out  a  glass  of  water  and  laid  both 
hands  firmly  on  the  table  before  him.  He 
suggested  that,  while  far  from  wishing  to 
swagger,  he  knew  he  was  master  of  the 
situation.  When  he  began  to  speak  there 
was  neither  the  ease  of  conversation  nor  the 
rhythm  of  declamation.  You  remembered 
that  he  had  been  a  professor  at  the  Ecole  de 
Guerre.  It  was  a  lecture,  pure  and  simple  ; 
and  the  first  word  was  as  distinct  and  clear 
cut  as  the  last.  His  whole  demeanour  said, 
"  Now,  gentlemen,  I  must  ask  you  to  listen 
to  me.  I  shall  take  some  time  ;  but,  if  you 
will  only  listen,  you  have  now  the  chance 
of  your  lives  to  understand  the  Dreyfus 
case." 

And  then,  without  hesitation  or  confusion, 
Colonel  Picquart  explained  the  Dreyfus  case 
for  seven  hours  and  a  half.  It  was  a  master- 
piece of  reasoning — the  intellectual  triumph 
of  the  trial.  I  should  strongly  advise  the 
French  War  Office  to  make  its  peace  with 


126  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

Colonel  Picquart,   for  he  has  a  better  head 
than  all  the  generals  put  together.     He  went 
over   the   whole    ground,    from    the    secret 
documents  to  the  latest  fancies  of  Esterhazy, 
and  seemed  the  only  man  who  knew  every 
foot   of    it.       He   knew    the   offices    of   the 
General   Staff  like  his  pocket — where  every 
document  was  kept,  where  everybody  worked, 
what  everybody's  work  was,  what  he  was  in 
a  position  to  know  and  what    he  was  not. 
He   had   seen   every  stage  of  the    Dreyfus 
case,  and  could  recite  from  memory  almost 
every  cryptogram  of  the  secret  dossier.     Yet, 
with  his  innumerable  digressions  and  paren- 
theses,  though  he   threw  out   hints  for  the 
elucidation      of      puzzle     after     puzzle     on 
the    spur    of  the    moment,     he    never    en- 
tangled    himself     in    details.       Always    he 
returned  to  the  main  argument  at  the  point 
where  he  left    it.     He  touched  every  point 
and  brought  it  into  its  due  relation  with  his 
whole    theory.     He    saw    the    nature    and 
bearing  of  every  fact  by  the  dry,  white  light 
of  pure  reason.      This  was  a  man  in  some 
sort  like  Mercier — a  man  for  whom  hate  or 
love,    anger   or    hope  or  fear,    could    never 


PlCQUART.  127 

colour  what  seemed  right.  Only  this  was 
a  man  with  a  brain — a  brain  like  a  swift, 
well-oiled  machine,  every  wheel  running 
easily  in  its  place,  every  nut  and  bolt  doing 
its  due  share  of  work,  no  more  and  no  less. 
To  the  nodding  stranger  Picquart  was  a 
revelation  ;  here  at  last,  you  cried,  is  a  man 
with  a  clear  head.  It  was  a  speech  for  the 
defence,  of  course — not  evidence  ;  but  it  was 
the  speech  of  a  supremely  gifted  intelligence. 
The  whole  Dreyfus  case  was  unreeled  like  a 
proposition  of  Euclid. 

And  not  only  the  Dreyfus  case,  either. 
Always,  you  will  have  observed,  we  had  been 
trying  two  cases  ;  by  now  they  were  four. 
The  Dreyfus  case  led  in  the  Esterhazy  case  ; 
and  now  in  turn  the  Esterhazy  case  led  in 
the  Picquart  case.  Esterhazy  was  accused 
to  prove  Dreyfus  innocent ;  Picquart  was 
accused  in  turn  to  prove  Esterhazy  innocent 
again  and  Dreyfus  again  guilty ;  finally 
Henry  was  accused  to  prove  Picquart 
honest,  Esterhazy  doubly  guilty,  and  Dreyfus 
trebly  wronged.  General  Roget  had  in- 
itiated us  the  day  before  into  these  first  two 
branching  alleys  of  the  trial.  Bertulus  had 


128  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

followed  him  and  had  introduced  the  fourth 
element — the  Henry  case. 

Picquart  began  with  Dreyfus.  He  de- 
scribed the  flutter  caused  by  the  arrival  of  the 
bordereau,  the  investigation,  the  identification, 
Du  Paty  de  Clam's  dictation  scene,  the  trial, 
the  alleged  confession— all  from  the  point  of 
view  of  an  eye-witness.  For  himself,  he  had 
thought  the  handwriting  of  the  bordereau  akin 
to  Dreyfus's,  but  could  not  say  it  was  the 
same.  He  had  seen  the  lines  that  Dreyfus 
had  written  at  Du  Paty's  dictation,  and  to  his 
eye  they  showed  no  tremulousness.  Going  on 
to  the  bordereau,  he  argued  that  there  was  no 
proof  that  the  information  it  invoiced  was  of 
any  importance.  If  it  had  been,  then  the 
author  would  have  said  so,  to  enhance  his 
price.  If  Dreyfus  knew  of  the  Madagascar 
plan  of  campaign,  then  he  knew  more  than 
Picquart,  who  was  then  his  chief.  As  for  the 
firing-manual,  it  was  not  a  confidential  docu- 
ment, and  almost  anybody  could  have  got  it. 
It  may  be  answered,  by  the  way,  to  this  that 
Dreyfus,  being  on  the  General  Staff,  would 
have  no  need  to  cry  up  his  wares — they  were 
bound  to  be  precious.  But  Picquart  here, 


PlCQUART.  129 

none  the  less,  put  his  unerring  finger  on  the 
weak  spot  of  the  general's  case.  They  all 
assumed  that  the  information  betrayed  was 
of  the  first  importance.  What  evidence  was 
there  for  that  assumption  ?  None  in  the 
bordereau.  Except  that  it  was  necessary  to 
implicate  Dreyfus,  there  was  no  reason  for  it 
in  the  world. 

That  finished  August  lyth.  Next  day 
Picquart — still  in  the  same  absolutely  lucid, 
absolutely  dispassionate,  absolutely  reason- 
able style — plunged  into  the  secret  dossier. 
He  had  known  it  when  he  was  head  of  the 
Intelligence  Department,  nearly  three  years 
ago  ;  now  he  had  to  deal  with  it  from  memory. 
In  the  Dreyfus  dossier  of  his  time,  he  said, 
there  were  three  documents  of  primary  im- 
portance. The  first  was  the  document 
"  Doubt  proof,"  of  which  the  text  has  been 
given  already.  Picquart's  interpretation  was 
of  course  diametrically  opposed  to  Mercier's. 
As  he  read  it,  Schwarzkoppen  said,  "  I  doubt; 
the  proof  (of  my  correspondent's  genuineness) 
is  his  officer's  brevet.  It  is  dangerous  forme 
to  deal  with  a  French  officer,  and  I  cannot 
personally  conduct  negotiations.  He  brings 

K 


130  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

what  he  has."     Here  in  the  original  German 
is  absolute  ge — ,  then  a  blank,  and  then,  in 
French,    bureau   de  renseignements.       About 
half  the  words  in  the  German  language  begin 
with  ge—.     Du   Paty  made  it   Gewalt  and 
translated  "  I  fear  the  absolute  power  of  the 
Intelligence  Department."     Picquart  made  it 
Gewissheit,  and  translated  "It  is  absolutely 
certain  he  is  in  relations  with  the  Intelligence 
Department."     Then  he  went  on,   "His  in- 
formation  has   no   relation  with   regimental 
matters,  and  is  important  only  as  coming  from 
the  Ministry."    Which  meant,  summarily,  that 
the  telegram  did  not  refer  to  Dreyfus,  but  to 
Esterhazy  in  conjunction  with  Henry. 

Next  he  boarded  the  Davignon  letter; 
Picquart  concluded  that  its  terms  are  so 
unconstrained  that  "  your  friend  "  can  hardly 
apply  to  a  spy.  Would  Panizzardi  simply 
say,  "Take  care  Davignon  does  not  know," 
if  it  were  such  a  deadly  matter  as  treason 
on  the  General  Staff?  Third  came  the 
"canaille  de  D—  '  letter  about  the  plans 
of  Nice.  But  if  Dreyfus  betrayed  these 
plans,  said  Picquart,  where  did  he  get  them 
from  ?  In  two  offices  where  plans  are  kept 


PlCQUART.  131 

search  was  made  and  nothing  had  been 
lost.  It  was  possible,  urged  the  prosecution, 
that  there  may  have  been  such  plans  in  the 
ist  Bureau  of  the  General  Staff.  Possible  ; 
but  were  there,  asked  Picquart,  as  a  matter 
of  fact  any  plans  missed  from  that  Bureau  ? 
There  is  no  record  of  any  such  thing,  After 
the  Dreyfus  trial,  he  concluded,  it  became 
the  habit  of  the  General  Staff  and  Intel- 
ligence Department  to  put  down  any  treason 
that  came  out  to  Dreyfus,  evidence  or  not. 
Dreyfus  accounted  for  everything,  and  any 
swindler  who  wanted  a  couple  of  hundred 
francs  brought  in  a  new  betrayal  by  Dreyfus. 
Whereas  when,  after  Dreyfus's  condemnation, 
a  document  found  its  way  out  of  the  ist 
Bureau,  and  Picquart  had  to  inquire  into 
the  leakage,  he  was  merely  told  that  it 
had  passed  through  so  many  hands  it  was 
impossible  to  say.  So  little  did  anybody 
care  for  treason  into  which  it  was  impossible 
to  drag  Dreyfus. 

Here  Picquart  left  the  Dreyfus  case  and 
proceeded  down  the  branching  alley  to 
Esterhazy,  and  himself,  and  Henry,  and  Du 
Paty  de  Clam.  He  went  on  in  the  same 

K  2 


132  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

calm,  luminous  style,  and  you  would  never 
have  known,  from  any  change  in  voice  or 
manner,  when  he  was  speaking  of  his  enemies 
or  when  of  himself.  It  was  plain  enough, 
going  by  the  substance  of  what  he  said,  that 
Du  Paty  was  his  personal  foe,  that  he  hated 
him.  But  it  was  a  curious  contrast  that 
whereas,  the  day  before,  General  Roget  had 
perspired  with  his  virulence  against  a  man 
he  had  hardly  seen ;  this  cool  and  balanced 
intelligence  delivered  his  damning  charges 
against  the  enemy  of  his  life  in  exactly  the 
same  way  as  he  would  have  delivered  a 
lecture  on  the  formation  of  infantry  for  the 
attack. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  follow  him  into 
the  details  of  what  happened  after  he  became 
head  of  the  Intelligence  Department.  The 
grounds  of  his  charges  against  Esterhazy 
have  been  related  in  Chapter  I.  ;  so  have  the 
stories  of  the  veiled  lady  and  the  forged 
telegrams  sent  to  Tunis.  Picquart's  part  in 
all  this  branch  of  the  case  was  double  ;  on  the 
defensive  he  had  to  clear  himself  from  the 
charge  of  having  used  unjustifiable  machina- 
tions to  prove  the  guilt  of  Esterhazy  ;  on  the 


PlCQUART.  133 

offensive  he  strove  to  establish  a  conspiracy 
between  Esterhazy,  Henry,  Major  Lauth  of 
the  Intelligence  Department,  and  General 
Gonse,  to  discredit  his  discoveries  and 
himself. 

He  denied  utterly  that  he  began  to  shadow 
Esterhazy      before     his      suspicions     were 
awakened   by  the  express  letter-card  {petit 
bleu]   from   the  German  Embassy,   or  even 
heard  of  him  till  then.     He  put  in  a  very 
smart  counter-attack.     There  was,  he  said, 
in  a  collection   of  documents   got   together 
against  him  a  newspaper  cutting  mentioning 
Esterhazy.      Henry  had  dated  this  January 
5th,   1896 — before  the  arrival  of  the  letter- 
card  ;  but  when  it  came  to  be  verified,  behold 
the  true  date  was  January  5th,  1897.     "You 
notice  the  fraud,"  was  all  the  quiet  Picquart 
said  :  Henry  had  made  another  forgery  with 
a  view  to  show  that  Picquart  had  had  Ester- 
hazy  in  his  eye  as  a  victim  before  he  began 
to  gather  evidence  against  him.     As  for  the 
charge    of  forging    the   letter-card,    it   was 
simple  to  rebut  it.      At  the  time  when  he 
received  a  forged  telegram  in  Tunis — "  They 
know  that  George  is  the  author  of  the  letter- 


134  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

card.  Blanche" — it  mysteriously  came  about 
that  the  name  of  Esterhazy  in  the  address  of 
this  card  was  scratched  out  and  the  same 
name,  Esterhazy,  written  above  the  scratch- 
ing. The  suggestion  was,  of  course,  that 
Picquart  had  altered  the  name  to  implicate 
Esterhazy  —  only,  unluckily,  Esterhazy's 
address  was  left  intact,  the  card  had  been 
photographed  without  any  scratches  when  it 
first  arrived,  and  the  scratching  had  been  done 
so  clumsily  that  experts  had  detected  the 
original  "  Esterhazy "  under  the  forged 
one. 

In  attacking,  Picquart  had  plenty  of 
weapons  to  his  hand.  Gonse  had  tried  to 
persuade  him  to  hush  up  the  case  against 
Esterhazy  for  fear  of  re-opening  the  Dreyfus 
case.  So  in  his  blunt  and  not  unkindly  way 
had  Henry.  "  When  I  was  in  the  Zouaves," 
parabled  that  burly  ranker,  "  a  private,  the 
son  of  a  colonel,  committed  a  theft.  His 
captain  wished  to  prosecute,  the  higher  officers 
did  not.  The  captain  was  broke,  and  the 
thief  remained."  Against  Du  Paty  he  asserted 
—what  Esterhazy  admitted  also — that  the 
veiled  lady  was  Du  Paty  himself  in  a  false 


PlCQUART.  135 

beard  and  blue  goggles.  Against  Lauth  he 
had  the  presumption  that  he  doctored  the 
letter-card.  Against  Lauth,  Henry,  and 
Esterhazy  together  he  produced,  following 
Judge  Bertulus,  a  very  black  story.  There 
was  a  German  secret  agent  called  Richard 
Cuers,  who  told  a  French  secret  agent,  one 
Lajoux,  that  he  wished  to  work  for  the 
French  Intelligence  Department.  Picquart 
sent  Lauth  and  a  commissary  named  Thorns 
to  interview  him  at  Basle,  and  at  the  last 
moment  Henry,  who  spoke  no  German,  in- 
duced Picquart  to  let  him  go  too.  They 
came  back  and  reported  that  it  was  impossible 
to  get  Cuers  to  say  a  word.  Later  Cuers 
met  Lajoux,  and  said,  "What  do  they  mean 
by  sending  this  red-faced  man  who  bullied 
me  and  would  not  let  me  speak  ?  "  He  had 
said  also  to  Lajoux — and  presumably  re- 
peated it  to  Henry  and  Lauth — that  Dreyfus 
had  betrayed  nothing  to  Germany ;  but  that, 
on  the  other  hand,  a  decorated  major,  between 
forty  and  fifty,  had  sold  documents  on  artillery, 
but  had  been  dismissed  because  his  informa- 
tion was  worthless  and  palpably  wrong.  Thus 
Picquart  discounted  the  evidence  that  Ester- 


136  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

hazy  knew  nothing  about  artillery.  Finally, 
and  here  was  the  blackest  part,  when  Bertulus 
searched  Esterhazy's  lodgings  a  letter  was 
found  marked  "Basle  R.C., "which  letter  when 
Henry  saw  in  the  judge's  room,  he  collapsed 
with  every  sign  of  guilty  consternation. 
Esterhazy,  argued  Picquart,  was  that  deco- 
rated major  who  betrayed  incorrect 
information  on  artillery,  and  Henry  was  his 
accomplice. 

Thus,  with  a  thousand  other  points  too  long 
for  mention,  Picquart  straightened  out  and 
wove  together  again  the  whole  tangle  of  the 
case.  Always  with  the  same  pellucid  intona- 
tion, with  the  same  grasp  and  logic,  with  the 
same  air  of  candour  and  moderation.  Every- 
thing he  said  was  without  rancour,  without 
prejudice — a  sincere  opinion  open  to  argu- 
ment. A  few  of  his  minor  points  were  in- 
accurate, and  the  correction  of  some  was 
uncontradicted  by  him  all  through  the  trial. 
But  a  man  who  pleaded  for  his  life  as  if  it 
were  an  interesting  mathematical  theorem — 
it  wanted  either  more  bias  or  more  knowledge 
than  I  commanded  to  call  that  man  a  liar. 
He  came  down  glowing  with  a  sort  of 


PlCQUART.  137 

placid  triumph  in  the  clearness  of  his  own 
head.  The  case,  which  day  by  day  had 
been  growing  blacker  and  blacker  against 
Dreyfus,  was  on  a  level  again.  And  Dreyfus, 
who  had  been  growing  whiter  and  whiter, 
was  once  more  a  living  man. 


138  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 


IX. 

THE  ALSATIANS. 

AFTER  Picquart  the  interest  of  the  case  fell 
down  badly,  and  showed  no  signs  of  getting 
up  again.  On  the  iQth  we  had  the  anti- 
Dreyfusard  anti-Picquart,  in  Major  Cuignet, 
an  officer  with  a  big,  fair  moustache, 
pale,  thin  cheeks,  vast  ears,  and  the  general 
air  of  an  intelligent  artisan.  He  had  been 
commissioned  by  M.  Cavaignac  to  classify 
the  Dreyfus  papers,  and  in  so  doing  had  dis- 
covered Henry's  forgery.  This  was  his  title 
to  fame,  but  to-day  he  cut  that  subject  alto- 
gether. Cuignet  had  been  put  up — it  was 
just  like  the  unjudicial  judicature  of  the 
Dreyfus  case — to  answer  Picquart,  much  as  in 
the  House  of  Commons  you  might  put  up  a 
Harcourtaftera  Chamberlain.  For  the  rest, 
he  said  nothing  new  and  left  a  nasty  flavour 
in  everybody's  mouth.  He  seemed  a  little 


THE  ALSATIANS.  139 

parasite  that  spent  his  time  on  the  Staff 
running  errands  for  the  generals  and  would 
say  exactly  what  the  generals  would  like 
him  to  say. 

Next  came  General  de  Boisdeffre,  a  very 
different  figure — the  gentleman  of  the  trial. 
He  was  tall,  and  perhaps  a  little  old  for  his 
sixty  years,  his  head  was  both  grey  and  bald, 
his  moustache  and  tuft  of  beard  grey  too, 
his  features  well  cut,  fine,  distinguished. 
His  voice  was  somewhat  gusty,  as  if  age 
were  attacking  him  there  also,  yet  distinct, 
and  had  a  mellow  pleasantness  after  the 
sharp,  hard  ring  of  most  of  the  witnesses. 
He  spoke  with  politeness  of  his  opponents, 
with  warm  affection  of  his  friends,  and  of 
himself— who  guaranteed  the  Henry  forgery 
and  then  resigned — with  a  rather  sad  dignity. 
After  him  came  his  late  second  in  command  on 
the  General  Staff — General  Gonse,  a  tubby, 
short-legged  double  of  Napoleon  III.  He 
was  less  attractive.  He  was  on  his  own 
defence  all  the  time  instead  of  on  the  attack 
of  Dreyfus,  and  pulled  at  his  Napoleonic 
beard  nervously.  Both  De  Boisdeffre  and 
Gonse  have  much  to  answer  for,  if  Drey- 


140  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

fusards  tell  truth.   The  impression  on  my  mind 
was  that  whenever  anybody  brought  General 
de  Boisdeffre  a  troublesome  point  about  the 
Dreyfus  case,  he  used   to  say  very  politely 
and   kindly,    "  I  think   you   had   better   see 
General  Gonse  about  it."    That  was  probably 
weak ;  but  I  am  much  deceived  if  De  Bois- 
deffre is  not  an  honourable,  as  he  is  a  courtly 
gentleman.     But   it   was   hard   to   see   why 
either  he  or  Gonse  was  there  except  that  no 
Dreyfus  trial  would  be  complete  without  them. 
Monday  also  gave  us  little  enough  in  the 
way  of  Dreyfus  case,  but  there  were  some 
interesting  personages.     General  Fabre  and 
Colonel  d'Aboville  were  the  first,   but  they 
were  out  of  place  ;  they  really  heralded  the 
cloud    of  witnesses  that   were   to   come  on 
the  following  days   to  depose  on  Dreyfus's 
demeanour   in   the   offices    of    the    General 
Staff.     After  them — for  no  apparent  reason 
except   that   it  would  be  a  pity  to  leave  a 
picturesque  figure  out  of  the  Dreyfus  case — 
came  M.  Cochefert,  Chef  de  la  Surete\  the 
great    detective    of    contemporary    France. 
Nobody  in  the  world  can  ever  have  looked 
less  like  a  detective  ;  he  is  the  sort  of  man 


THE  ALSATIANS.  141 

who  would  have  sat  down  with  a  criminal 
in  a  cafe  and  had  confidences  forced  upon 
him  before  the  second  absinthe.  He  wears 
a  frock-coat  down  to  his  heels,  as  if  he  had 
had  a  section  cut  out  of  his  legs.  His  face 
is  a  blend  of  Bismarck  and  a  fat  mastiff; 
as  he  sits  in  the  cafe  with  a  tall  hat  on 
the  back  of  his  head  and  his  jolly  paunch 
between  his  knees,  you  would  put  him  down 
as  a  thrifty  cabman  from  Auvergne  who  has 
saved  money  and  now  has  a  growler  or  two 
of  his  own.  With  regard  to  the  Dreyfus 
case,  he  was  present  at  Du  Paty's  dictation 
scene  and  the  arrest ;  at  the  moment  of  the 
arrest  he  was  convinced,  as  is  the  duty  of 
a  good  French  detective,  of  the  prisoner's 
guilt.  But  the  prosecution  took  little  out  of 
Cochefert,  after  all ;  for  he  wound  up  that  if 
he  had  then  known  the  bordereau  and  the 
handwriting  of  Esterhazy,  he  would  have  felt 
it  his  duty  as  an  honest  man  to  go  to 
the  Minister  and  call  his  attention  to  the 
similarity  between  them. 

The  next  witness  was  Gribelin,  the  archi- 
vist of  the  Intelligence  Department.  You 
must  understand  that  when  Picquart  was 


142  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

head  of  that  service  his  subordinates  were 

Henry,    Major    Lauth,    Captain  Junck,  and 

Gribelin  ;  and  all  were  against  him   on  the 

Dreyfus-Esterhazy    question.       To-day   the 

three   last  were  to  appear,    so    that  of  the 

Picquart,  if  not  of  the  Dreyfus,  case  it  was 

an  important  crisis.     Gribelin  was  a  man  of 

middle    size   with    the    air   of    a    promoted 

sergeant,  which  I  suppose  is  what  he  is.     As 

he  gave  his  evidence  he  rubbed  his  thumb 

and  forefinger  continually  across  his  throat — 

thinking,   perhaps,   of  his    mentor,   the   late 

Colonel   Henry.     A  man  of  his  class  being 

employed   to   lock   up    secret   documents  in 

boxes    would    be    quite    sure     to    become 

saturated  with  secret-service  all  through,  and 

so  Gribelin  was.      He  was  more  diplomatic 

than  the  diplomatists.      A   military  attache 

said  something  :    that  was  quite  enough  to 

convince  the  astute  Gribelin  of  the  opposite. 

Dreyfus  said  he  was  innocent ;  that  proved 

to  Gribelin  that  he  was  guilty. 

After  Gribelin  came  Lauth  and  Junck — 
men  of  a  very  different  stamp.     They  were 
by  far  the  best  witnesses  the  prosecution  had 
yet  had — the  best  witnesses  anybody  could 


THE  ALSATIANS.  143 

wish  to  have.  Fully  half  of  the  military  wit- 
nesses seen  hitherto  had  been  poorly  made 
men — podgy,  herring-gutted,  slouching ;  both 
Lauth  and  Junck  were  models  of  soldiers. 
Lauth  was  the  dragoon — black  tunic  with 
white  collar  and  cuffs, -baggy  red  trousers  ;  he 
moved  with  the  elastic  swing  of  a  horseman  ; 
stood  while  he  gave  evidence  with  legs 
crossed,  leaning  easily  forward  towards  the 
judges  ;  to  look  at  his  limber  back  you  would 
have  said  that  he  was  twenty  instead  of  forty- 
one.  In  face  he  was  tanned,  with  a  brown 
moustache  and  a  heavy  jaw  and  chin  ;  with 
his  monocle  you  might  have  taken  him  for 
an  English  guardsman.  Junck  was  bigger 
and  beautifully  built — straight  as  a  cleaning 
rod  and  long  as  a  lance.  He  wore  a  huge 
moustache  framed  in  a  square  face  that 
bespoke  sense  and  resolution. 

Their  manner  of  giving  evidence  was 
altogether  admirable.  Both  these  Alsatians, 
knowing  German  as  completely  as  French, 
had  been  in  the  Intelligence  Department  and 
understood  every  detail  of  its  work.  Neither 
dissipated  himself  on  a  review  of  the  whole 
case.  Lauth  spoke  on  the  production  of  the 


144  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

bordereau,  Junck  on  his  intercourse  with 
Dreyfus,  whose  contemporary  he  was  ;  both 
on  what  passed  in  the  Intelligence  Depart- 
ment under  Picquart.  Lauth  was  perhaps 
the  more  spirited  of  the  two,  but  Junck's 
slow,  clear,  unimpassioned  style  was  equalled 
only  by  Picquart's. 

Both  were  quite  distinct  and  quite  positive. 
Both  knew  what  they  were  talking  about, 
and  showed  what  they  knew  with  a  wealth 
of  corroborative  detail.  They  told  how  the 
furniture  was  placed,  where  Picquart  sat, 
where  they  stood :  after  that  how  could  you 
disbelieve  them  when  they  went  on  to  tell 
you  what  each  said  ?  They  were  so  quaintly 
humorous  that  you  could  not  suspect  them 
of  malice.  They  were  so  frank  in  giving 
points  to  the  other  side  that  you  would  not 
suspect  them  of  bias.  The  general  effect 
of  their  evidence  was  that  you  could  not 
believe  a  word  that  Picquart  said. 

It  was  the  most  curious  problem  in  life, 
and  the  most  baffling.  Here  were  the  three 
Alsatians — Picquart,  Lauth,  and  Junck,  all 
equally  positive,  all  equally  lucid,  all  equally 
convincing — and  either  the  first  or  the  other 


THE  ALSATIANS.  145 

two  must  be  deliberately  and  elaborately 
lying.  Only  which  ?  Of  course  the  Anti- 
Dreyfusards  said  Picquart,  and  the  Dreyfus- 
ards  said  Lauth  and  Junck.  But  for  the 
man  who  merely  wanted  to  find  out  the  truth 
it  was  blankly  hopeless.  True,  there  were 
two  of  Lauth  and  Junck  against  one  of 
Picquart ;  on  the  other  hand,  it  would  pro- 
bably pay  twice  as  well  to  be  on  Lauth's  and 
Junck's  side  as  it  would  to  be  on  Picquart 's. 
If  Picquart  or  Junck  be  false — and  one  or 
other  must  be — what  do  you  think  of  men 
who  face  their  fellows  on  the  most  important 
issue  of  France's  recent  history,  and  in  plain, 
temperate,  carefully  selected  language,  with- 
out a  hesitation,  a  slip,  a  discrepancy,  a 
second  of  confusion,  lie  steadily  for  hours  ? 
If  Lauth  be  false,  what  of  a  man — it  con- 
stantly happened  in  the  subsequent  days — 
who  at  every  turn  of  the  case,  at  every  crisis, 
when  Labori  was  flashing  his  searchlight, 
when  the  witness  was  silent  and  the  judges 
were  suspicious,  and  the  generals  lost  their 
heads — who  flung  up  his  hand  with  "  I  ask  to 
be  heard,"  and,  standing  up  on  the  platform, 
told,  in  simple,  unaffected  language,  the 

L 


146  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

right  lie  in  the  right  place.  You  could  never 
put  him  down,  you  could  never  take  him 
wrong.  Cool,  ready,  resolute,  if  Major 
Lauth  was  lying  he  is  the  master  liar  of  the 
world  ;  and  if  he  is  not,  Picquart  is.* 

Well,  I  suppose  we  shall  all  see  through 
the  Dreyfus  case  on  the  Day  of  Judgment  ; 
meanwhile  I,  for  one,  give  it  up.  But  I  ask 
you  to  give  your  attention  for  a  moment  to 
the  extraordinary  prominence  of  Alsatians  in 
this  trial  that  involves  France.  Dreyfus  has 
less  achieved  his  greatness  than  had  it  thrust 
upon  him  ;  yet  Dreyfus  is  certainly  a  man 
capable  beyond  the  average  of  France. 
Dreyfus,  Picquart,  Lauth,  and  Junck  were 
the  clearest-headed  men  in  the  place — all 
Alsatians.  Freystaetter — whom  you  will 
meet  later — the  fighting  soldier,  the  only 
quite  disinterested  man  in  the  place — is  an 


*  Only  at  the  end,  I  must  regretfully  add,  Lauth  ruined 
his  whole  artistic  display.  He  alleged  that  on  the  day  of 
the  Czar's  great  fete  in  Paris  Picquart  brought  his  mistress 
to  lunch  with  the  wives  of  his  subordinates.  He  added 
information  which  enabled  most  people  in  court  to  identify 
the  lady.  This  ungentlemanly  burst  of  spite  annihilated  all 
his  days  of  self-restraint.  I  am  not  sure  but  Junck  was  the 
best  liar  after  all 


THE  ALSATIANS.  147 

Alsatian.  Zurlinden,  the  most  soldierly  of  the 
generals,  Bertin-Mourot,  the  most  soldierly 
of  the  witnesses,  Hartmann  the  best  tech- 
nical artillerist  --  all  Alsatians.  Colonel 
Sandherr,  whose  secret  agent  brought  in  the 
bordereau^  and  M.  Sheurer-Kestner,  whose 
action  led  to  its  first  public  attribution  to 
Esterhazy — both  Alsatians.  General  Mercier, 
who  headed  the  prosecution,  and  Mathieu 
Dreyfus,  who  engineered  the  defence — both 
were  brought  up  in  Alsace. 

I  wonder  what  will  happen  to  France  next 
generation  when  there  are  no  more  Alsatians 
left  ?  They  will  all  be  Germans  then,  and 
whatever  will  the  poor  Frenchmen  do  ? 
They  will  have  to  close  the  Intelligence 
Department  of  the  War  Office,  for  one  cer- 
tainty ;  for  an  Alsatian  seems  the  only 
Frenchman  capable  of  knowing  German 
He  seems,  also,  the  only  man  in  France  who 
can  keep  a  cool  head  and  stick  to  a  point. 
What  will  she  do  when  that  backbone  of 
Teutonic  stability  is  withdrawn  ?  As  they 
say  in  the  newspapers — poor  France  ! 


L  2 


148  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 


X. 

THE  COURT  AND  THE  CASE. 

You  will  say  I  am  trying  to  shirk  the  his- 
torian's duty,  but  my  first  duty,  as  they  said 
daily  before  the  Court-Martial,  is  to  tell  the 
truth.  The  truth  is  that  at  this  stage  the 
Dreyfus  case,  the  world-shaking,  heart-tearing 
Dreyfus  case,  was  becoming  a  bore. 

Most  fair-minded  observers  had  given  up 
all  hope  of  arriving  at  the  complete  and 
certain  truth.  The  enormous  range  and 
complexity  of  the  case — a  range  of  five  years 
and  a  complexity  involving  perpetual  con- 
tradictions between  men  who  both  ought  to 
know,  perpetual  appeals  to  witnesses  who 
did  not,  and  apparently  did  not  propose  to, 
appear,  rival  interpretations  of  cryptograms 
in  German  cipher,  the  text  of  which  we 
never  saw,  and  the  unceasing  doubt  that  any 
given  document  might  turn  out  at  any  moment 
to  be  a  forgery — had  melted  all  our  brains  tq 


THE  COURT  AND  THE  CASE.    149 

jelly.  I  take  the  case  of  the  Schneider- 
dare  I  call  it  forgery  ? — letter.  General 
Mercier  quoted  in  his  evidence  a  letter  from 
Colonel  Schneider,  the  Austrian  Military 
Attache  in  Paris.  In  it  the  writer  said  he 
still  believed — this  was  dated  November  3oth, 
1897 — that  Dreyfus  had  had  relations  with 
the  German  secret  espionage  offices  at 
Strasburg  and  Brussels.  To  the  English 
mind  Colonel  Schneider's  belief  seemed  to 
have  little  enough  to  do  with  the  case ;  but 
General  Roget  said  he  considered  it  the 
most  damning  document  in  the  whole  secret 
dossier.  Almost  at  the  same  moment  arrived 
a  telegram  from  Colonel  Schneider,  who  was 
staying  at  Ems,  denouncing  the  letter  as  a 
forgery.  The  Austro- Hungarian  Charge 
d' Affaires  in  Paris  confirmed  the  disclaimer. 
Major  Cuignet,  in  his  evidence,  threw  doubt 
on  the  denial,  On  the  top  of  that  came  a 
letter  from  Schneider,  saying  that  the  date 
attributed  to  the  letter  must  be  false,  for  in 
November,  1897,  he  took  the  diametrically 
opposite  view  of  Dreyfus's  guilt ;  but  the 
text  itself  he  must  examine  before  he  could 
say  whether  it  was  from  his  hand  or  not. 


150  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

Later  on  there  rose  up  a  rumour  that 
Mercier,  at  the  last  moment,  was  going  to 
produce  a  photograph  of  the  original 
bordereau — of  which  the  document  before 
the  Court  was  but  a  copy,  made  either  by 
Esterhazy  or  somebody  else.  This  photo- 
graph, they  said,  had  been  made  while  the 
original  was  coming  back  from  Berlin  to 
Paris — for  lo !  it  was  annotated  in  the 
German  Emperor's  own  hand,  and  bore  the 
superscripture,  "  Return  to  Captain  Dreyfus 
for  further  details  !  "  What  could  you  make 
of  a  case  when  the  documents — the  indubit- 
able black  and  white  documents — were  such 
fleeting  wraiths  as  these  ? 

The  Frenchman  and  the  foreign  partisans 
had  no  such  symptoms  :  to  them  everything 
on  their  side  was  crushing,  everything  on  the 
other  flimsy.  "  Every  day,"  said  the  In- 
transigeant,  "fresh  proofs  are  remorselessly 
piled  up  against  the  traitor."  "  Every  day," 
said  the  Aurore,  "  demonstrates  more  fully 
the  deplorable  weakness  of  the  enemies  of 
truth  and  justice."  I  met  one  Frenchman— 
and  only  one — impartial  enough  to  admit 
that  he  was  partial. 


.THE  COURT  AND  THE  CASE.    151 

Said  he  :  "  Suppose  you  had  discovered 
that  there  "was  treachery  in  your  Navy,  which 
is  your  all,  as  our  Army  is  ours.  And  suppose 
that  for  five  years  you  saw  your  admirals 
maintaining  one  side  of  the  question  and  your 
little  Englanders  the  other.  Which  side 
would  you  be  on  ?  "  I  had  only  one  reply ; 
if  I  were  a  Frenchman  I  should  have  been 
an  anti-Dreyfusard.  In  England  I  should 
trust  the  admirals.  But  what  should  I  do 
when,  after  I  had  trusted  the  admirals  five 
years,  the  admirals  came  forward  to  give  me 
the  materials  to  form  my  own  judgment,  and 
gave  me  the  same  sort  of  materials  as  the 
French  generals  were  giving  in  the  Dreyfus 
case  ?  If  the  evidence  had  been  given  at 
once,  I  should  have  said  that  it  looked 
bad,  perhaps,  but  was  not  enough  to 
hang  a  dog  on.  But  after  five  years  of 
bitter  faction  ?  It  is  not  so  easy  to  resume 
the  judicial  mind  in  a  day.  I  declare  it 
is  an  outrage  to  ask  a  Frenchman  to  be 
impartial. 

For  the  members  of  the  Court-Martial  the 
test  was  as  cruel  a  one  as  any  man  could 
undergo.  If  you  took  seven  Frenchmen  from 


152  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

the  street  they  would  have  made  up  their 
minds   before    they   so   much    as    saw    the 
prisoner;    Dreyfus   would   have   been    con- 
demned, on  a  fair  average,  by  five  to  two  or 
six   to   one.      But   these   seven    officers,    in 
addition  to  the  prejudgment  of  years,  found 
superior    officer    after    superior   officer — the 
men  whom  it  is  their  military  duty  to  trust 
and  follow — coming  before  them  and  plead- 
ing all  on  one  side.     Whatever  they  decided, 
they  were  sure  to  be  the  butts  of  the  bitterest 
hostility   for   the   remainder   of    their   lives. 
Even  though  the  evidence  were  abundant, 
irrefutable,     and    all    on     one     side,     their 
position   would  have  been  difficult  enough. 
It    was   turning   out    scanty,    doubtful,    and 
ambiguous.     The  result  was  that  whatever 
decision     they    gave    would    be     ascribed, 
not   to   an    honest   estimate   of  the   weight 
of  the   evidence,  but  to   motives   of  which 
professional    interest    or   political   prejudice 
were  the  least  discreditable.     I  take  it  that 
every  one   of  the  seven  would  sooner  have 
faced   a    park    of    German    artillery    at    a 
thousand    yards  than    sat    on  the    Dreyfus 
Court-Martial. 


THE  COURT  AND  THE  CASE.    153 

Considering  this,  when  I  read  in  English 
papers  that  the  Court  was  showing  signs  of 
partiality,  my  blood  boiled.     If  it  had  been 
true,  it  had  been  better   left  unsaid  at  the 
moment.       At   this   stage   certainly   it    was 
not    true.        Drumont,    of    course,    had  not 
lost  the  chance  of  an  indecent  exhibition — 
only  he  imputed  unfairness  on  the  opposite 
side.       "  On    the    first    day,"    said    one    of 
the   writers  of  the  Libre  Parole,    "  Colonel 
Jouaust     showed    tact    and     impartiality ; " 
which  meant  that  he  severely  cross-examined 
Dreyfus.     But  now  he  had  repented  of  his 
good    intentions.       "  Why   did   he   brutally 
threaten  to  clear  the  court  when  somebody 
shouted     'hoo'    at     Dreyfus?"        If     this 
sort    of  thing   goes   on,    the    Libre    Parole 
reminded  him,  one  will  recall  the  fact  that 
Colonel     Jouaust's    wife    is    a    relation    of 
Waldeck- Rousseau — that  that  agent  of  the 
Panama   swindlers   was    actually   a    witness 
at  his  marriage,    and  that  his   brother  is   a 
militant  Freemason  ! 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  Court-Martial 
commanded  the  respect  of  everybody,  Drey- 
fusard  or  anti-,  who  saw  it  at  work.  The 


154  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

colonel  I  have  spoken  of  before  ;  he  gave 
the  idea  of  being  a  firm  but  kindly  father  to 
everybody  in  the  room.  He  sat  there  with 
keen  eyes  twinkling  behind  his  eyeglasses 
and  his  huge  white  moustache  hovering  over 
the  council  table  like  a  dove.  On  his  right 
was  Lieutenant-Colonel  Brogniart,  Director 
of  the  School  of  Artillery  at  Rennes,  a 
narrow-headed,  high-browed  face,  expressive 
of  a  precise  intelligence  ;  his  technical  accom- 
plishment was,  of  course,  beyond  suspicion. 
On  the  President's  left  was  a  mild  and 
elderly  major,  with  benevolent  spectacles 
and  white,  fluffy  hair  like  a  baby's.  To  right 
and  left  of  these,  like  the  supporters  of  a 
coat-of-arms,  were  a  small  major  and  a  big, 
black,  bullet-headed  captain  on  each  side. 
All  belonged  either  to  the  Engineers  or  to 
the  Artillery,  which  means  that  all  had  passed 
through  the  Ecole  Poly  technique,  and  were 
therefore  men  of  education. 

The  members  who  took  the  most  active 
part  were  the  Colonel,  the  Lieutenant- 
Colonel,  and  Captain  Beauvais.  They 
questioned  every  important  witness,  and 
never  made  a  single  unintelligent  or  inap- 


THE  COURT  AND  THE  CASE.    155 

posite  inquiry.  It  was  no  small  matter  even 
to  know  the  questions  in  this  case,  much  less 
answer  them  ;  but  these  three,  at  least,  knew 
the  questions  thoroughly.  Captain  Beauvais's 
examinations  would  have  done  credit  to  a 
lawyer.  He  was  a  burly  man  with  a  round, 
cropped  head  and  round,  staring  eyes,  but  he 
followed  every  turn  and  double  of  the  case 
like  a  bloodhound.  He  knew  what  every 
witness  was  driving  at,  he  knew  what  every 
witness  was  in  a  position  to  tell,  and  out 
of  that  he  knew  exactly  what  he  wished 
to  hear. 

So  did  Colonel  Jouaust.  The  inquiry 
had  strayed  the  very  second  day  far  beyond 
the  original  limits  imposed  by  the  Cour  de 
Cassation.  But  the  Colonel  made  a  resolute 
effort  to  keep  it  straight.  Thereby  he 
involved  himself  in  charges  of  partiality  from 
both  sides  :  every  French  witness  thinks  it 
is  grossly  unfair  if  he  is  not  allowed  to  say 
anything  he  likes  about  anything.  The 
President  often  came  into  collision  with 
Labori  later  in  the  trial,  partly  because 
Labori  wished  to  range  at  large  over  all 
the  controversies  of  the  last  five  years,  partly 


156  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

because  Jouaust  had  never  been  brought  in 
contact  with  such   a   whirlwind   of  a  cross- 
examiner  before,  was  a  little  afraid  of  what 
he  would  do  next,  and  tried  on  principle  to 
prevent   him    from    doing    it.     The   insaner 
Dreyfusards,  who  were  the  majority,  objected 
that  he  treated  the  Generals  with  deference  ; 
but    how    otherwise    on    earth    would    you 
expect  a  colonel  to  treat  a  general  ?     The 
Anti- Dreyfusards,  on  the  other  hand,   were 
furious  with  him  for  shutting  down  the  Com- 
missary   of    the     Government    when     that 
estimable     functionary     wanted     to     make 
speeches ;  but  I  do  not  think  their  fury  was 
very  sincere  after  the  first  week  or  two  of 
the  case.      On  the  whole,   Colonel  Jouaust, 
thrown  by  the  caprice  of  a  roster  into  the 
middle  of  the  cauldron  that  was  seething  his 
whole    country,   behaved   with    impartiality, 
tact,   and   dignity,   and  won  the  respect  of 
everybody  who  watched  him.     Towards  the 
finish  I  fancy   he   was   very  eager  to  have 
the  beastly  thing  finished  and  get  away  with 
the  relation  of  Waldeck- Rousseau   into  the 
country.     With  this  aim  he  tried  his  utmost 
to  confine  the  issue  to  the  interlaced  Dreyfus 


THE  COURT  AND  THE  CASE.    157 

and  Esterhazy  cases,  and  leave  the  Picquart, 
Henry,  and  Du  Paty  de  Clam  cases  to  settle 
themselves.  It  was  not  easy  to  keep  them 
out,  but  at  length  it  began  to  be  done.  Only 
at  the  very  end,  as  we  shall  see,  did  he  make 
an  unquestionable  blunder,  which  damns  him 
for  ever  in  the  eyes  of  Dreyfusard  Europe  ; 
but  for  my  part  I  watched  him  and  still 
believe  in  his  honesty. 

Now  to  sum  up  the  position  on  the  morn- 
ing of  August  22nd.  The  whole  case  had 
been  outlined — or  rather  the  whole  five  inter- 
twining cases.  Henceforth  we  should  be 
able  to  concentrate  more  particularly  on  the 
Dreyfus-Esterhazy  case  proper.  That  case, 
as  it  came  before  the  Court,  you  might  divide 
into  five  parts.  There  was  the  evidence  of  the 
secret  dossier,  the  technical  analysis  of  the 
bordereau,  the  character  of  Dreyfus,  the 
handwriting,  and  the  alleged  confessions. 
Of  all  this  we  had  had  the  first  two  branches 
fairly  well  threshed  out  by  Mercier,  Cavaignac, 
and  Roget  on  the  one  side,  and  Picquart  on 
the  other.  The  defence  would  have  some 
witnesses  bearing  on  them  to  come  at  the 
end  of  the  trial.  We  were  now  about  to 


158  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

enter  successively  on  parts  three,  four,  and 
five.  As  yet  it  looked  anybody's  case. 
Dreyfus's  guilt  had  not  been  proved,  but 
neither  had  his  innocence.  That,  of  course, 
ought  not  to  have  needed  proving ;  he  had 
a  right  to  the  benefit  of  the  doubt,  but 
would  he  get  it  ? 


159 


XL 

LABORI. 

IT  was  twenty-five  minutes  past  six  of  a 
chilly  morning.  The  hall  of  the  Lycee 
buzzed  and  clacked  with  even  more  than  its 
usual  horse-power  of  conversation.  Yester- 
day we  were  all  talking  of  the  Dreyfus  case's 
sudden  swoop  into  an  abyss  of  murky  dul- 
ness  ;  to-day  everybody  was  galvanic  with 
anticipation.  Yesterday  we  had  floated  into 
a  sleepy  pool  of  unimportant  witnesses,  and 
the  only  ripple  on  the  monotomy  was  the 
gradual  rehumanisation  of  Dreyfus.  To-day 
the  witnesses  were  smaller  yet — a  string  of 
unimportant  colonels  and  majors — yet  every- 
body was  looking  keenly  forward  to  be 
thrilled.  The  explanation  lay  in  one  name 
— Labori.  Labori  was  well  and  would 
appear  to-day. 

Even  in  the  full  gallop  of  French  con- 
versation eyes  perpetually  shifted  towards 
the  door.  And  suddenly,  in  a  second,  every- 


160  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

body  knew  that  he  was  there.  There  moved 
in  the  great  figure  in  the  white-edged  black 
gown,  with  the  little  black  advocate's  bonnet 
clinging  dandily  to  the  side  of  his  head  like 
a  soldier's,  with  the  big,  eager  face  and  the 
shock  of  unruly  brown  hair. 

He  came  in  alert  and   eager,    conscious, 
like  all  orators,  of  the  effect  he  made,  frankly 
delighting  in  it — a  spirit  half  electricity  and 
half  sunshine.     Officers  and  sightseers  and 
journalists   alike   leaped  up   and  shook  the 
roof  with  clapping.     He  moved  towards  his 
place  breast-deep  in  hand-shakes.     General 
Mercier  got  up  from  his  seat,  walked  over 
and  shook  his  hand.     Awhile  the  two  stood 
bowing,    smiling,    talking    easily  —  the    two 
champions  in  the  mortal  fight  for  a  man's  life 
and  the  dominion  of  France — each  accuser 
and  each  accused — each  well  knowing  that 
the  victory  he  is  striving  after  is  the  utter 
downfall   of  the  other.       But   for  those  un- 
affected minutes   Labori    and   Mercier   were 
nothing  but  two  honest  men  and  gentlemen. 
France  has  lost  much  that  was  great  during 
these  years  of  faction,  but  there  still  remains 
French  courtesy. 


LABOR:.  161 

"  Presentez  r-r  -  rmes  ! "  The  rifles 
clatter ;  the  Court  enters,  salutes,  takes 
its  seat.  Then  the  President — he,  too, 
a  model  of  suave  and  sincere  courtesy 
— expresses  the  sympathy  of  the  judges, 
congratulates  the  lawyer  on  his  escape.  He 
rises  to  reply. 

"Do  not  tire  yourself,"  says  the  colonel  ; 
but  you  might  as  well  try  to  stop  the  earth 
in  its  orbit  as  the  natural  orator  when  his 
feelings  are  aflow.  He  rises,  his  huge  figure 
just  a  little  bent,  his  colour  the  flush  of  fever 
rather  than  of  health,  his  voice  retaining  the 
warmth  and  music  of  its  old  tones,  but 
without  the  fire  and  ringing  steel — and  out 
it  pours.  The  words  rush  out  in  a  stream, 
yet,  despite  the  softness  of  the  utterance, 
their  articulation  is  such  that  from  the  back 
of  the  hall  you  hear  almost  every  one.  He 
speaks  of  the  cruelty  of  the  blow  that  struck 
him  down  at  the  moment  of  realising  his  two 
years'  dream,  of  pleading  this  case  in  all  its 
amplitude  before  a  military  tribunal — of  his 
sorrow  then  and  his  joy  to-day  ;  he  thanks 
first  the  Court  and  then  everybody,  known 
and  unknown,  friend  and  foe,  who  have  ex- 

M 


1 62  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

pressed  sympathy  with  him ;  gives  all  to 
know  that  he  has  come  back  to  fight  and 
win  ;  and  concludes  melodiously  that  the  part 
of  error  in  human  affairs  is  always  greater 
than  the  part  of  bad  faith. 

In  an  Englishman  it  would  have  disgusted  ; 
in    a    common    Frenchman    it   would    have 
moved  a  kindly  smile  ;  in   Labori  it  touched 
and  stirred  and  thrilled.     Here,  at  last,  was 
an  orator.     Whether  he  meant  it  all  or  not 
— and  for  my  part  I  make  no  doubt  he  did— 
mattered  nothing  to  the  oratory  ;  the  rest  of 
us,  whatever  we  felt,  could  not  have  seemed 
to  feel  it  as  he.     A  true  orator — an   actor 
with  brains.     His  gestures,  instead  of  follow- 
ing his  words  as  a  clumsy  speaker's  do,  moved 
with  them  on  the  same  impulse,  spontaneous, 
unconscious,  the  outward  index  of  the  spirit. 
His  voice  hung  always  on  the  rim  between 
wrath    and   tears.      It   swayed   and   swung, 
paused  and  hastened,  glided  over  this,  hurled 
itself  on  that,  till  it  became  an  automatic  com- 
mentary on  his  words    and   played   on   the 
hearts  of  men  as  a  master  plays  on  an  organ. 
It  was    not   a   man   saying    words ;    it  was 
thought,  feeling,  and  purpose,  coming  out  into 


LABORI.  163 

words  by  themselves,  and  coming  out  in 
perfect  harmony  with  each  other.  It  was 
not  a  speech,  but  the  revelation  of  a 
soul. 

The  witnesses  came  in  and  began  to  tell 
their  uninteresting  stories.  But  before  the 
second  had  stood  down  the  air  was  suddenly 
quivering  with  combat.  Labori  was  fighting  ; 
and  in  a  twinkle  the  whole  aspect  of  the  case 
was  changed.  For  twelve  days  the  generals 
had  been  ponderously  attacking  ;  an  hour 
of  Labori  and  they  were  suddenly  on  their 
defence.  -As  the  witness  enters  and  begins 
his  tale  the  advocate  is  lying  rather  than 
sitting  in  the  armchair  they  have  given  him, 
one  of  the  lowest  heads  in  court,  instead  of 
the  highest  as  he  had  been  the  first  day  ;  his 
whole  aspect  spells  lassitude.  The  witness 
goes  on  :  he  slowly  sits  up,  and  crouches  his 
head  close  over  the  table,  like  a  lion  watching 
its  prey.  The  witness  finishes ;  slowly, 
slowly  the  great  form  upheaves  itself,  bent 
nearly  double  over  the  table.  His  turn 
to  question  is  just  coming  ;  he  raises 
himself  erect  and  towers.  And  then  he 
springs,  His  voice  is  gentle,  reasonable, 

M  2, 


164   THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

persuasive,  but  he  swoops  on  the  vital 
part. 

It  was  Major  Rollin,  the  present  head  of  the 
Intelligence  Department,  that  he  swooped  on 
first.  Did  Major  Rollin  translate  the  Schneider 
forgery  ?  No.  That  question  should  be 
gone  into  with  closed  doors,  says  the  Com- 
missary of  the  Government,  and  like  a  flash 
comes  Labori's  parry.  It  was  General 
Mercier,  not  he,  who  introduced  Colonel 
Schneider's  name  and  letter  ;  then,  none 
contradicting  him,  he  goes  on  his  way.  Can 
Major  Rollin  tell  him  whom  he  is  to 
question  about  the  translation  ?  No.  Then 
what  is  the  worth  of  documents  which  we 
cannot  see,  which  we  may  not  discuss, 
for  which  it  is  impossible  to  know  who  is 
responsible  ? 

A  second  to  feel  the  blow,  but  not  to 
recover  from  it,  and  then,  gently,  per- 
suasively, how  did  General  Mercier  come 
by  his  copy  of  this  document  ?  General 
Mercier  will  not  reply. 

"Mr.  President,  I  insist !  "  says  Labori. 

The  generals  gasp ;  here,  suddenly,  is  a 
man  who  insists.  "  I  allow  myself  to  insist" 


LABORI.  165 

—the  gentle  voice  is  rising — "  that  questions 
put  very  respectfully  and  with  great  prudence 
shall  be  answered.  We  want  complete  light. 
I  insist " — the  voice  is  swelling  to  a  roar — "  I 
insist  upon  General  Mercier  answering,  for  I 
have  a  right  to  an  answer." 

Stupefaction  !  No  help  from  the  Court ; 
no  prompting  from  friends  :  General  Mercier 
takes  the  responsibility. 

"It  is  his  own  personal  responsibility ; " 
then,  swiftly,  mercilessly :  "I  ask  by  what 
right  General  Mercier  has  in  his  possession 
all  the  secret  documents  ?  " 

No  answer. 

"  I  insist." 

"  But  as  General  Mercier  will  not  answer," 
says  the  President — 

"  But  the  law  !  "  thunders  Labori.  "  There 
is  a  law  on  espionage  !  When  this  document 
came  into  the  bureau  General  Mercier  was 
no  longer  Minister.  It  is  a  crime  !  " 

Five  minutes  of  time — a  score  of  sentences 
sharp  as  rapiers,  crushing  as  sledge-hammers 
— and  the  Dreyfus  case  is  turned  clean  round. 
Five  minutes  ago  Mercier  was  the  accuser. 
Now  he  sits  silent — the  accused — accused 


1 66  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

under  that  very  law  on  espionage  which  he 
was  pressing  against  Dreyfus.  The  advocate 
has  made  no  change  in  the  evidence.  But 
he  has  put  the  other  side  in  the  wrong. 

Henceforth  there  is  only  one  man  in  the 
room,  but  he  fills  it — the  man  who  insists. 
The  spectators  watch  him  and  hold  their 
breath  when  he  rises  to  speak.  The  Court 
sit  and  listen  to  his  smashing  blows  in  silence, 
as  if  he  were  an  uncontrollable  force  of 
nature.  The  prosecutor  sits  paralysed.  The 
generals  lay  their  heads  together.  The 
witnesses  give  evidence  with  one  eye  on  the 
Court  and  the  other  on  the  cross-examiner. 
The  very  gendarmes  wake  and  follow  the  trial. 
The  very  soldiers  of  the  guard  outside  bunch 
together,  creep  nearer,  and  peer  into  the  hall 
at  the  man  who  insists. 

The  Dreyfus  case  is  suddenly  Labori. 
He  has  all  the  doggedness  of  Mercier,  the 
subtlety  of  Roget,  the  clearness  of  Picquart, 
the  passion  of  Dreyfus  himself.  All  eyes  to 
see  the  weak  spot,  lightning  to  strike,  crystal 
to  argue  and  confute,  inflexible  iron  to  compel 
— now  luring  Siren,  now  raging  Berserker— 
Labori  is  the  very  incarnation  of  the  all- 


LABORI.  167 

inquiring,   all-constraining,   relentless,   resist- 
less, remorseless  might  of  law. 

At  the  end  of  the  day  Dreyfus  turned  and 
shook  his  hand  for  the  second  time,  and  for 
the  first  time  his  stony  face  broke  and 
melted  into  a  smile. 


1 68  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 


XII. 

His  COMRADES  UPON  DREYFUS. 

PRESENTLY,  on  this  same  day,  we  saw  the 
advocate  on  his  sunnier  side.  There  came  up 
to  give  evidence  Lieutenant-Colonel  Bertin- 
Mourot,  a  soldier  all  over  and  all  through, 
breezy,  simple-minded,  kind-hearted,  thick- 
headed, transparently  honest.  You  may  be 
sure  that  whoever  goes  on  or  whoever  hangs 
back,  his  men  will  follow  Colonel  Bertin. 
He  gave  his  evidence  like  a  series  of  words 
of  command  —  now  pausing  to  remember, 
now  checking  to  correct  himself,  now 
bursting  into  a  gust  of  exclamation,  now 
turning  with  a  stentorian  "  No  !  No,  no  ! 
O  no,  no  !  "  on  an  advocate  he  suspected  of 
tripping  him  up.  It  was  thinking  aloud  in  a 
voice  of  thunder. 

He  had  been  Dreyfus's  chief  in  the  Second 
Bureau  of  the  General  Staff,  and  spoke  of 
his  habits.  When  asked  what  were  the 


His  COMRADES  UPON  DREYFUS.  169 

hours  of  his  bureau  he  replied  with  feeling, 
"  We  were  supposed  to  go  to  breakfast  at 
half-past  eleven,  but  how  many's  the  time 
we've  not  left  till  twelve  or  half-past ! " 
When  he  began  a  story  telling  how  M. 
Sheurer-Kestner  sent  for  him,  he  cried 
unaffectedly,  "  I  suspected  at  once  that  it 
was  the  Dreyfus  case  coming  up  in  the 
healthy  regimental  life  I  was  leading." 
He  told  how  he  was  walking  at  Belfort 
with  one  of  the  Scheurer-Kestners,  and 
passed  the  factory  of  the  Dreyfus  family. 
"  It  is  a  peculiar  factory — in  the  centre  a  big 
chimney,  on  the  right  nothing— a  desert  sur- 
rounded by  walls.  I  turned  and  said,  '  There's 
Tropman's  field — there's  the  field  of  crime.' 
That  shows  I  never  doubted  Dreyfus's  guilt." 
Here  at  least  was  no  intriguer.  Labori 
rose  to  cross-examine  him,  and  there  ensued 
the  queerest,  most  irregular,  most  irrelevant, 
prettiest  scene  of  comedy  you  ever  ought  not 
to  have  heard  in  a  law  court.  "  Does  Colonel 
Bertin  remember,"  asks  Labori,  "  that  I  had 
the  honour  of  dining  with  him  at  the  house 
of  a  common  friend  a  fortnight  after  Dreyfus's 
degradation  ?  "  "  Name  ? "  cries  hearty  Ber- 


170  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

tin.  Labori whispers.  "Certainly."  "Does 
Colonel  Bertin  remember  telling  me  he  con- 
sidered himself  one  of  the  principal  artisans 
of  Dreyfus's  condemnation?"  "Artisan? 
No  !  Allow  me  !  The  word  is  important." 
Then  he  goes  on  to  explain  that  he  always 
had  thought  till  the  other  day  that  he  dis- 
covered Dreyfus's  treason,  but  now  his  com- 
rades assure  him  they  discovered  it  while 
he  was  on  leave.  "  At  any  rate,  Colonel 
Bertin  spoke  of  the  affair  with  emotion." 
"  Emotion  !  I  should  think  so !  One  of 
my  old  officers  condemned  of  high  treason ! 
I  should  think  so."  "  Does  not  Colonel 
Bertin  remember  •  speaking  very  warmly 
about  Maitre  Demange — not  in  any  way 
that  .might  wound  him  ? "  "  When  recall- 
ing a  conversation  it  is  important  to  bear 
in  mind  its  atmosphere."  "Surely."  "Maitre 
LaboH  will  permit  me  to  remind  him  that  he 
was  then,  as  he  may  be  now  for  all  I  know, 
the  man  who  came  up  to  me,  took  both  my 
hands  and  said,  '  Never  shall  I  forget  what 
you  did  for  my  father.'  And  I  honour  myself 
to-day  that  I  may  perhaps  have  had  some- 
thing to  do  with  the  giving  of  that  well- 


His  COMRADES  UPON  DREYFUS.  171 

earned  cross  to  M.  Labori,  Chief  Inspector 
of  the  Eastern  Railway.  I  found  myself  at 
dinner  with  the  son  of  this  good  M.  Labori, 
who  did  so  well  in  1870  ;  evidently  I  talked 
to  him  with  pleasure.  What  I  said  I  don't 
know.  Will  you  go  on  with  your  story, 
Maitre  Labori  ?  If  I  remember  I  will  say  to 
you  '  Yes  ;  quite  true  ;  I  remember.' '  "I 
hope,"  takes  up  Labori,  full  of  good  humour, 
"  Colonel  Bertin  understands  that  I  am  not 
setting  a  trap  for  him.  First,  will  he  allow 
me  to  thank  him  from  the  bottom  of  my 
heart  for  what  he  has  just  said  and  what  I 
was  not  expecting  to  hear  ?  "  "I  am  here  to 
tell  the  truth,"  breaks  in  the  jolly  Colonel ; 
"  I  have  nothing  to  hide." 

And  so  on.  The  conversation  turned  out 
to  have  nothing  in  it  at  all,  merely  that  the 
Colonel  had  said  that  Demange  was  advocate 
of  the  German  Embassy,  and  that  Labori, 
seeing  how  easily  a  good  soldier  could  believe 
a  ridiculous  fable,  thereupon  began  to  suspect 
the  innocence  of  Dreyfus.  There  was 
nothing  in  the  silly  incident  at  all  except 
sheer  courtesy  and  mutual  kindliness.  Sheer 
waste  of  time,  of  course,  only  I  do  not  think 


172  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

anybody  grudged  it.     The  Dreyfus  case  is 
not  so  full  of  mutual  kindliness  as  all  that. 

The  remaining  witnesses  of  August  22nd, 
and  those  of  the  23rd  and  24th,  were — with 
one  exception,  treated  later — neither  lengthy 
nor  important.  The  first  was  Lieutenant- 
Colonel  Gendron,  of  the  ist  Cuirassiers — a 
smart-looking  officer  who  had  done  some 
service  for  the  Intelligence  Department.  He 
told  us  how  he  had  once  been  to  see  an 
Austro- Hungarian  lady  in  Paris,  who  was 
neither  young,  nor  beautiful,  nor  virtuous, 
but  who  knew  a  great  deal  about  Austria  and 
Hungary.  So  did  Colonel  Gendron,  where- 
on she  said  he  must  be  a  spy.  After  he  had 
gone  away,  the  Colonel  reflecting  on  these 
words,  and  on  the  luxury  wherein,  although 
neither  young  nor  beautiful,  she  was  able  to 
live,  came  to  the  conclusion  that  she  must  be 
a  spy  herself.  When  Dreyfus  was  charged 
in  1894  with  having  been  to  this  same  lady's 
house,  he  replied  that  Colonel  Gendron  went 
there  too,  and  so  he  supposed  there  was  no 
harm  in  it.  Thus  Colonel  Gendron  came 
into  the  case,  and  all  this  he  said  in  1 894. 
"But  there  is  one  thing,"  he  added  with 


His  COMRADES  UPON  DREYFUS.  173 

great  solemnity,  "  which  during  four  years  I 
have  just  spent  in  Africa  has  dwelt  with  a 
veritable  anguish  in  my  spirit,  and  which  my 
conscience  tells  me  it  is  my  duty  to  tell  to- 
day." Whenever  they  gambit  like  this  you 
can  always  be  sure  that  something  of  sterling 
unimportance  is  coming  ;  and  so  it  did.  The 
question  that  inspired  his  anguish  was  this  : 
why  did  Dreyfus,  not  knowing  him,  give  his 
name,  of  all  others,  as  reference  for  the  Austro- 
Hungarian  lady  ?  And  he  darkly  added 
that  at  that  time  he  had  just  quitted  a  most 
confidential  post  in  the  Intelligence  Depart- 
ment. It  was  most  suspicious — until  Maftre 
Demange  pointed  out  that  he  had,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  asked  himself  that  very  question 
before  the  Court-Martial  of  1894.  "  I  thought 
I  hadn't,"  was  all  the  Colonel  replied — and 
went  off  presumably  to  forget  he  had  said  it 
again,  and  suffer  anguish  of  conscience  four 
years  more. 

The  rest  of  the  day  was  a  procession  of 
Dreyfus's  old  comrades  on  the  General  Staff. 
Captain  Besse  next  testified  that  Dreyfus 
once  came  into  his  room  to  bring  a  secret 
document  up  to  date ;  it  was  agreed  on  all 


174  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

sides  that  he  had  been  ordered  to  do  so  by 
his  commanding  officer.  Major  Boullenger 
said  Dreyfus  knew  a  great  deal  about  mobi- 
lisation, and  once  asked  him  a  very  signifi- 
cant question  about  changes  in  the  points  of 
detrainment  for  the  cavalry  divisions  of  the 
covering  troops.  Dreyfus  said  that  the  only 
question  he  asked  was,  "  Any  news  in  the 
Fourth  Bureau  ? "  Next  came  Lieutenant 
Colonel  Jeannel,  who  had  lent  Dreyfus  a 
firing-manual  at  a  date  he  could  not  fix.  On 
the  whole  he  thought  it  was  before  July. 
Dreyfus  replied  to  this  deposition  that  he 
never  borrowed  the  firing-manual  at  all,  and 
that  in  1894  the  prosecution  alleged  that  he 
had  learned  of  it  from  conversations  in 
February  and  March,  whereas  Jeannel  never 
saw  the  manual  till  May.  The  last  witness 
of  the  day  was  Major  Maistre,  who  likewise 
dwelt  on  Dreyfus's  knowledge  and  his 
insatiable  curiosity. 

Next  day  saw  the  procession  of  officers 
resumed.  Major  Roy  said  that  Dreyfus 
could  easily  have  got  at  the  safes  in  the  War 
Office  where  documents  were  kept.  Major 
Dervieu  said  the  same,  and  added  that 


His  COMRADES  UPON  DREYFUS.  175 

Dreyfus  boasted  of  being  able  to  come  late 
to  the  office  in  the  morning,  with  the  impli- 
cation that  he  stayed  alone  after  hours  to 
make  up  his  work.  The  prisoner  retorted  that 
he  came  late  only  on  the  Mondays  between 
August  1 6th  and  September  24th,  during 
which  time  his  wife  was  away  in  the  country 
and  he  spent  Sundays  with  her.  Then  came 
Captain  Duchatelet,  who  said  that  Dreyfus 
(a)  once  opened  a  bag  of  secret  papers, 
and  (6)  once  told  him  he  had  lost  either 
6,000  or  15,000  francs  at  the  house  of  a 
courtesan.  Dreyfus  said  that  he  opened  the 
bag  when  on  duty,  which  witness  agreed, 
and  energetically  denied  the  story  about  play. 
So  far  things  had  been  dull  enough.  But 
now  a  faint  curiosity  flickered  up,  for  the 
next  witness  was  one  of  M.  Quesnay  de 
Beaurepaire's.  This  gentleman,  you  must 
know,  is  an  ex-judge  who  had  constituted 
himself  a  sort  of  private  public-prosecutor  of 
Dreyfus.  He  had  published  appeal  after 
appeal  imploring  anybody  who  had  any 
evidence  of  the  traitor's  treason  to  com- 
municate with  him  at  once.  Many  had,  and 
a  queer  lot  they  were.  One  was  a  groom 


176  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

who  said  he  had  held  Dreyfus's  horse  while 
he  followed  the  German  manoeuvres ;  one 
was  a  gentleman  who  said  he  had  heard  one 
German  officer  say  to  another  in  a  cafe, 
"  Well,  Dreyfus  will  soon  bring  us  news 
about  that."  Another  was  a  gentleman  who 
said  that  he  had  been  in  the  Kaiser's  bedroom 
and  seen  the  words,  "  Captain  Dreyfus  is 
arrested,"  written  on  a  newspaper.  A  fourth 
was  a  mysterious  stranger  giving  the  name 
of  Karl,  who  dragged  the  ex-judge  all  over 
France  to  rendezvous  which  somehow  never 
came  off,  got  him  to  advance  large  sums  for 
expenses,  and  finally  wrote  to  him  one 
morning — and  to  the  Figaro  also — returning 
the  money  and  assuring  M.  Quesnay  de 
Beaurepaire  that  he  was  an  ass. 

The  present  witness  was  a  gentleman 
giving  the  name  of  Charles  Louis  du  Breuil, 
landed  proprietor.  He  wore  a  tight-buttoned 
black  morning  coat  and  light  trousers,  and 
looked  perhaps  less  like  a  squire  than  a  shop- 
walker. He  bowed  with  suavity  to  the  Court 
and  began  his  story  in  the  most  approved 
novelistic  style.  "  In  1885  and  l886  I  lived 
in  Paris,  and  it  was  my  custom  to  ride  every 


His  COMRADES  UPON  DREYFUS.  177 

morning  in  the  Bois.     One  morning,  a  few 
feet  before  me,  in  an  alley  near  the  cascade, 
I  saw  a  horse  slip  on  the  ground,  which  was 
this  morning  covered   with  snow— fall,  and 
bring   down    his    rider    with    him.       I    did 
what   anybody   else    would    have    done    in 
my   place " — and  so  on.     The  fallen  horse- 
man bore  the    melodious  name    of  Bodson, 
the    owner    of    a     shop    in    the    Rue    de 
Rivoli.     The  incident  produced  an  acquaint- 
ance,  and    acquaintance — only  after   M.   du 
Breuil  had  made  inquiries  and  received  what 
he    called    "  favourable    information "  as    to 
M.  Bodson's  character  and  social  position- 
became    friendship.     He  was  introduced    in 
due  course    to    Madame   Bodson,   in  whose 
company    was    Lieutenant    Dreyfus.      Soon 
after  he  dined  with  the  Bodsons,  and  there 
again  was  Lieutenant  Dreyfus — and  also  an 
attach6    from    the    German    Embassy,  with 
whom    Dreyfus   appeared    to    be    on    most 
friendly  terms.     The   patriotic   Du    Breuil's 
resolution  was  quickly  made.     Next  morning 
he  told  Bodson,  politely  but  firmly,  that  he 
would  not  go  again  to  a  house  where  he  had 
met  a  German. 

N 


178  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

"Why,  I'm  delighted  to  hear  it,"  cried 
Bodson.  "They're  not  my  friends,  but  my 
wife's ;  and,  as  you  must  have  seen,  Dreyfus 
is  her  lover."  Then  he  added,  "I  could 
have  him  turned  out  of  the  army  to-morrow." 

"  But  if  you  turned  out  every  officer  of  the 
French  army  who  has  taken  to  himself  his 
neighbour's  wife,"  responded  the  knowing  Du 
Breuil,  "you  would  make  rather  a  gap  in  the 
Army  List." 

Bodson  said  he  did  not  mean  that,  and 
proceeded,  as  bourgeois  husbands  always  do 
in  French  plays,  to  dwell  on  the  luxuries  he 
allowed  Madame  Bodson,  and  her  ingratitude 
for  the  same.  A  day  or  two  afterwards  Du 
Breuil  asked  Bodson  whether  it  was  because 
of  the  German  attache  that  he  said  that,  but 
could  get  no  direct  answer. 

"  If  I  were  you,"  thereon  said  the  correct 
Du  Breuil,  "  I  should  go  straight  to  the 
Minister  of  War.  I  believe  you  to  be  a 
good  Frenchman,  and  it  is  your  duty." 

"  Easier  said  than  done,"  replied  the 
cautious  Bodson.  "  I  am  in  business  ;  I 
have  my  shop." 

"  Whereupon,"  concluded    Du    Breuil,   "  I 


His  COMRADES  UPON  DREYFUS.   179 

left  him  and  never  saw  him  again.  Voila, 
M.  le  President,  ma  deposition" 

It  was  almost  a  pity  to  put  any  further 
touches  to  a  masterpiece  like  Du  Breuil's  ; 
it  was  painting  the  lily.  But  next  morning 
the  defence  suddenly  produced  from  the 
back  of  the  hall  a  gentleman  named  Linol, 
liquidator  of  companies.  He  explained  that, 
happening  to  be  in  court  the  day  before, 
there  Jiad  suddenly  fallen  on  his  ears  the 
name  of  Bodson.  Now,  he  also  knew  Dreyfus 
and  the  Bodsons  in  1885  and  since  ;  he  was 
able  to  assert  that  the  society  they  received, 
if  a  little  mixed — said  the  fastidious  Linol, 
who  himself  looked  like  a  miller  in  Sunday 
clothes — was  quite  respectable.  Further- 
more, Dreyfus's  sister-in-law  visited  the 
house  ;  furthermore — and  here  is  the  point, 
said  the  perspicuous  Linol  —  Bodson  had 
assured  him,  after  the  condemnation  of 
Dreyfus,  that  he  did  not  believe  the  accused 
capable  of  treason. 

The  sentiments  of  Bodson  being  now 
thoroughly  elucidated,  the  way  was  clear 
for  another  branch  of  the  case.  The  con- 
temporary evidence  as  to  Dreyfus's  past  was 

N    2 


180  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

over  and  we  could  get  on  to  Esterhazy.  But 
before  we  go  on  two  points  had  come  out 
very  clearly  from  the  officers  of  the  General 
Staff. 

The  first  was  a  very  noticeable  strengthen- 
ing of  testimony  since  1894 — even  since  the 
appeal  before  the  Cour  de  Cassation  early 
this  year.  What  was  then  an  opinion  had 
now  become  a  conviction,  and  general  state- 
ment had  hardened  into  particular  and 
definite  accusation.  Again  and  again  Maitre 
Demange,  watchful  if  ponderous,  called  on 
the  Registrar  to  check  witnesses  by  reading 
their  previous  statements.  Colonel  d'Aboville 
in  his  deposition  here  said  that  the  author  of 
the  bordereau  must  be  a  stagiaire,  or  officer 
attached  for  a  two  years'  course  to  the 
General  Staff  as  Dreyfus  was;  in  1894  he 
only  said  he  must  be  an  artillery  officer  and 
on  the  General  Staff. 

Major  Boullenger  in  1894  said  that 
Dreyfus's  questions  were  often  indiscreet ; 
here  he  particularised  with  the  highly  sus- 
picious story  of  his  inquiries  about  the  cavalry 
of  the  covering  troops.  In  1894  Major 
Dervieu  merely  said  in  a  general  way  that 


His  COMRADES  UPON  DREYFUS.  181 

Dreyfus  came  late  to  the  office  of  mornings  ; 
in  1899  he  said  plumply  that  Dreyfus  some- 
times stayed  absolutely  alone  in  the  office 
between  half-past  eleven  and  two  and  could 
ransack  every  document  in  the  place.  Of 
course,  the  Dreyfusards  said  that  the  order 
had  gone  out  from  the  generals  ;  evidence 
was  ruling  light  and  everybody  was  to  make 
his  contribution  a  little  heavier.  To  my  own 
mind  the  fact  is  just  as  well  explained  less 
discreditably :  after  five  years  of  a  subject  a 
Frenchman  can  talk  himself  into  an  honest 
belief  in  anything.  It  is  very  possible  also 
that  the  man  who  took  no  trouble  with  his 
evidence  in  1894,  when  Dreyfus's  guilt  was 
taken  on  trust,  could  quite  truthfully 
strengthen  it  when  the  importance  and 
contentiousness  of  the  case  urged  him  to  dig 
deep  into  his  memory.  In  any  case — con- 
spiracy, honest  delusion,  or  truth — the  fact 
remained  that  the  evidence  against  Dreyfus 
was  being  pressed  as  it  had  never  been 
pressed  before. 

The  second  point  is  a  personal  one — the 
attitude  of  the  prisoner.  All  through  this 
series  of  witnesses  he  was  seen  at  his  best. 


1 82   THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

He   sat   unmoving  while   the  witnesses  de- 
posed— the  strange,  harsh  profile,  grimly  cut 
at  the  mouth  by  the  dark  moustache,  more 
rigid,  more  immobile,    more  unearthly  than 
ever.     But  at  the  close  of  each  testimony  he 
rose  and  discussed  it — did  not  merely  deny 
and  protest,  but  discussed  it,  neither  hysterical 
nor  automatic.     His  memory  of  the  incidents 
brought  forward,  whether  true  or  false,  was 
for  the  most  part  wonderfully  clear-cut — how 
many   times   he  must   have  threshed   them 
over  inside  his  palisade ! — but  when  he  did 
not   clearly   remember   he   said   so    without 
constraint.     When  there  was  a  plain  justifi- 
cation for  his  action  he  said  so  plainly,  when 
there  was  a  point  which  could  be  cleared  up 
in  his  favour   by  an   inquiry  he  demanded 
inquiry.      There   was   no   show   of  passion 
against  his  accuser.     But  for  one  theatrical 
outburst — "  I    love  France  and    I    love  the 
army,  the  country.     Read  over  what  I  wrote 
in  the  Devil's  Island  and  you  will  see  !  "—he 
was    throughout    the    embodiment    of  clear 
reason,  logic,  moderation. 

His    self-command    was    the    more    com- 
mendable in   that  for  two  days  he   had   to 


His  COMRADES  UPON  DREYFUS.    183 

listen  to  the  most  unamiable  accounts  of 
himself,  and  they  were  so  unanimous  it  was 
hard  to  doubt  that  they  were  true.  We 
got  the  picture  of  the  old  Dreyfus,  the 
prosperous  Dreyfus,  the  unpurged  Dreyfus  as 
he  was  in  1894  and  will  never  be  again. 
The  picture  is  an  ugly  one.  None  of  his 
comrades  liked  him ;  most  detested  him. 
You  will  say  the  other  officers  disliked  him 
because  he  was  a  Jew.  He  was  very  able 
and  very  ambitious — but  his  ability  and  his 
ambition  appeared  wholly  selfish.  He  would 
shirk  laborious  inquiries  and  then  go  to  more 
conscientious  officers  for  the  confidential 
results.  He  ''exploited  the  situation,"  said 
Colonel  Bertin. 

He  devoted,  at  the  same  time,  great 
attention  to  subjects  such  as  mobilization 
which  might  get  him  a  better  post  in  war- 
time than  that  to  which  he  was  assigned. 
He  was  perpetually  thrusting  himself  into 
what  did  not  concern  him  in  hopes  of  getting 
something  that  might  profit  him.  Like  a 
true  Oriental  he  was  very  low  with  the  high 
and  very  high  with  the  low.  He  could 
flatter  his  superiors,  although  that  did  not 


1 84  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

prevent  him  from  irritating  them  \vith 
his  importunate  and  impertinent  curiosity. 
Among  his  equals  and  inferiors  he  swaggered 
— "  in  a  choking  way  "  as  one  officer  put  it. 
He  swaggered  about  his  knowledge,  his 
cleverness,  his  quickness  in  learning  things, 
his  late  hours  at  the  office,  his  money,  his 
mistresses.  Supple,  clever,  secretive,  ac- 
quisitive, unboundedly  conceited,  cheaply 
arrogant — he  seemed  made  to  fit  the  anti- 
Semite  imagination. 

Of  course  none  of  this  proves  him  a  traitor. 
None  of  it  excuses  these  cowardly  soldiers 
who  let  an  unpopular  comrade's  guilt  go  by 
default.  But  that  he  was  unpopular  who  can 
deny? 


XIII. 

ESTERHAZY. 

THE  principal  witness  on  August  23rd  was 
Charles  Marie  Ferdinand  Walsin  Esterhazy. 

On  the  whole  he  is  the  most  interesting 
and  romantic  character  that  had  yet  come 
before  the  Court.  Dreyfus  is  more  wonder- 
ful, no  doubt,  but  Dreyfus's  interest  is  almost 
an  accident ;  it  is  what  was  done  to  him,  not 
what  he  did,  that  makes  him  unique.  Ester- 
hazy  owes  his  fascination  to  no  freak  of  fate  ; 
he  is  the  captain  of  his  own  soul,  and  is  what 
he  is  in  virtue  of  his  own  individuality. 

Were  he  as  commonplace  as  he  is  the 
opposite,  he  would  still  be  interesting  as  the 
one  person  in  the  Dreyfus  case  who  appears 
entirely  on  his  own  account.  He  favours 
neither  side,  but  rails  at  both.  Neither  has 
a  good  word  to  say  for  him  ;  both  sides  spew 
him  out  of  their  mouths. 

Out  of  the  cloud  of  irrelevancies,  hearsay, 
and  tittle-tattle  that  daily  befogged  us  there 


1 86  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

emerged  this  clear  rule  of  French  military 
jurisprudence :  anything  from  anybody  is 
evidence,  except  anything  from  Esterhazy. 

Nobody  believes  a  word  he  says,  yet  many 
are  convinced — may  have  the  best  of  reasons 
to  know — that  when  he  says  he  knows  more 
than  appears  he  is  telling  the  truth.  What- 
ever he  does  or  does  not  know,  it  is  certain 
that,  for  reasons  of  his  own,  he  does  not  wish 
to  say  it,  and  nobody  else  much  wishes  him 
to  say  it  either.  The  revelations  which  he 
can  (or  cannot)  and  will  (or  will  not)  make 
have  kept  France  agape  for  two  years.  It  is 
no  ordinary  man  who  has  thus  blackmailed 
the  curiosity  of  the  world. 

I  am  not  able  to  tell  you  what  he  looks 
like,  for  he  was  not  there.  They  merely 
read  out  his  letters  and  deposition  before  the 
Court  of  Cassation.  His  photographs  suggest 
him  as  a  small  man  with  wide  open  eyes, 
predatory  nose,  huge  bristling  grizzled  mous- 
tache, and  a  big  square  chin ;  the  whole 
face  is  nervous,  quivering,  energetic,  and 
passionate.  Still,  you  cannot  trust  photo- 
graphs ;  so  in  his  regretted  absence  you 
must  let  his  life  and  words  speak  for  him. 


ESTERHAZY.  187 

He  was  born  fifty-one  years  ago  of  a 
Hungarian  family,  which  has  been  settled 
over  a  hundred  years  in  France.  It  has 
given  many  distinguished  officers  to  the 
French  army,  not  the  least  of  whom  was 
his  father ;  he,  in  the  picturesque  words  of 
his  son  "  with  the  point  of  his  sabre  in- 
scribed on  the  standard  of  the  4th  Hussars 
the  fight  of  Kanghil  in  the  Crimea." 
Esterhazy  the  younger  was  brought  up, 
after  his  father's  death,  in  Austria,  and  at 
the  age  of  eighteen  he  entered  an  Austrian 
cavalry  regiment.  He  was  thus  in  time 
for  the  war  of  1866,  and  was  wounded  by 
a  lance  thrust  in  the  chest  at  Custozza. 
Soon  after  he  left  the  Austrian  service — 
nobody  seems  to  know  why  —  and  entered 
that  of  the  Pope.  With  the  Roman  Legion 
he  took  part  in  the  battle  of  Mentana  ; 
but  on  the  outbreak  of  the  Franco-German 
War  hurried  to  place  his  sword  at  the 
disposal  of  Napoleon  III.  As  a  sub- 
lieutenant he  served  through  the  war,  being 
attached,  in  1871,  to  the  valiant  army  of 
the  Loire. 

Thus  at  twenty-three  Esterhazy  had  made 


1 88  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

three  campaigns  in  three  different  services. 
His  life  had  been  that  of  a  condottiere  of  the 
Italian  Middle  Ages  —  and  condottiere  is 
exactly  what  he  ought  to  have  been.  What 
is  better,  he  knows  it.  "  The  Dreyfusite 
papers,"  said  he  in  his  deposition,  "  call  me 
Reiter,  Lanzknecht,  Condottiere.  It  may 
be  ;  I  glory  in  it.  With  soldiers  like  me, 
men  used  to  win  battles,  and  such  as  I  did 
not  abandon  their  comrades  in  the  melly." 
Esterhazy  is  the  pure  adventurer — a  condot- 
tiere born  four  hundred  years  too  late.  He 
is  as  veritable  a  sans-patrie  as  any  Jew  of 
them  all. 

Fate  had  brought  him  into  the  French 
service,  but  he  cursed  it  and  hated  the 
French.  "The  general,"  he  wrote  to  a  lady 
from  Tunis,  where  he  saw  service  some 
eighteen  years  ago,  "  is  determined  to  play 
the  fool ;  we  never  doubted  it.  In  the  first 
real  war  these  great  leaders  will  be  ridicu- 
lously beaten,  for  they  are  both  cowardly  and 
ignorant ;  once  more  they  will  go  to  people 
German  prisons,  which  will  again  be  too 
small  to  hold  them."  "  I  should  be  perfectly 
happy,"  he  wrote  again,  "  if  I  were  killed  to- 


ESTERHAZY.  189 

morrow  as  a  captain  of  Uhlans  cutting  down 
Frenchmen."  And  he  goes  on  to  gloat  over 
the  picture  of  "  the  sun  red  over  Paris  taken 
by  assault  and  given  over  to  be  sacked  by  a 
hundred  thousand  drunken  soldiers." 

To  Frenchmen  such  words  were  horrible, 
unspeakable.  To  Esterhazy,  the  Hungarian 
by  descent,  the  Austrian  by  education,  who 
had  fought  for  Kaiser  and  Pope,  as  well  as 
for  Emperor  and  Republic,  that  he  should 
next  serve  another  Kaiser  as  Uhlan  was  the 
most  natural  idea  in  the  world.  It  was 
the  most  natural  idea  in  the  world  that  the 
soldier-of-fortune  should  dream  fondly  of 
the  sack  of  cities.  From  all  his  life  emerges 
the  same  character  of  the  free-lance.  Even 
before  the  highest  Court  in  France  his 
language — "  I  will  not  repeat  his  military 
terms,"  as  he  says  himself  of  Henry — is  the 
language  of  the  camp.  So  are  his  vices. 
He  married  a  lady  of  good  family  and 
fortune — "  my  chiefs  were  consulted,"  he 
writes  with  a  characteristic  attempt  at  moral 
blackmail,  "and  represented  me  to  her 
family  as  an  officer  with  a  future" — but  he 
dissipated  the  fortune,  and  was  not  constant 


190  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

to  the  lady.  His  connection  with  Mile.  Pays 
is  to-day  more  than  notorious.  "  You  will 
admit,"  he  writes,  "  that  it  is  a  queer  army 
where  one  is  obliged  to  give  explanations 
of  a  thing  like  that."  Though  he  never 
tires  of  calling  himself  a  good  officer 
and  a  good  soldier,  he  was  far  from 
assiduous  in  his  regimental  duties.  If  he 
did  not  play  he  gambled  on  the  Bourse. 
He  was  erratic,  untrustworthy,  continually 
turning  on  his  dearest  friends.  His  conver- 
sation was  wild  and  almost  always  inapposite. 
When  he  was  trying  to  get  into  the  War 
Office  he  complained  that  Colonel  Henry 
was  keeping  him  out.  When  he  was  told  a 
few  hours  later  that  Henry  was  working  for 
him  he  cried,  "Why,  if  Henry  weren't  nice 
to  me  it  would  be  the  end  of  everything." 
He  seemed  that  strange,  but  not  unknown, 
phenomenon — a  man  wholly  without  balance 
and  wholly  without  conscience. 

And  yet  the  extraordinary  thing  about 
him  was,  that  though  he  might  leave  his 
friends  in  the  lurch,  they  never  left  him.  He 
borrowed  money  and  abused  the  lender  if 
he  asked  for  it  again  ;  but  when  he  went 


ESTERHAZY. 


back  for  more  he  got  it.  He  played  a 
crooked  part  in  1892  regarding  the  anti- 
Semitic  duels,  in  which  the  Marquis  de 
Mores  won  fame  ;  yet  when  he  wanted 
to  be  recommended  for  a  place  his  fasci- 
nation was  such  that  the  very  relations 
of  those  who  had  suffered  from  him  were 
unable  to  say  No.  He  squandered  the 
goodwill  of  his  own  family  and  of  his 
wife's,  yet  the  indefinable  charm  of  his 
personality  always  gave  him  plenty  of  interest 
when  he  wanted  something  done.  His 
mistress,  Mile.  Pays,  remained  devoted  to 
him  after  he  was  ruined,  imprisoned,  broke. 
He  was  as  gifted  as  he  was  winning.  He 
spoke,  says  one  who  used  to  know  him, 
every  language  in  Europe.*  He  kept  up  with 
every  discovery  in  every  science,  and  was 
widely,  if  not  profoundly,  read  in  military  and 
general  history.  He  worked  hard  when  he 
liked,  and  work  came  easy  to  him. 

All  this  builds  up  no  ordinary  character. 
But  thrown  over  all  this  is  another  attribute 


*  He  does  not,  but  you  must  remember  that  it  is  no 
common  man  in  France  that  can  speak  any  foreign  language 
at  all. 


192  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

not  easy  to  define.  It  is  Esterhazy's  extra- 
ordinary way  of  envisaging  himself.  He 
considered  himself  different  from  other  men. 
He  is  always  thinking,  always  talking  of 
himself.  He  is  one  of  those  men  who  are 
always  in  the  centre  of  the  stage  of  their  own 
minds  with  themselves  for  the  applauding 
house  ;  and  whatever  part  Esterhazy  saw  fit 
to  play  he  played  it  to  the  life. 

To-day  he  is  the  struggling  and  heroic 
husband  and  father ;  yesterday  he  was  the 
frail  but  sympathetic  sinner  :  to-morrow  he  will 
say,  "  I  am  nothing,  but  I  am  very  worthy  of 
interest  and  pity,"  because  of  his  ancestors 
and  kinsmen  who  died  for  France,  and 
because  he  is  the  last  of  his  name.  Next  he 
is  dignified :  he  must  be  worth  something, 
because  generals  and  deputies  interest  them- 
selves on  his  behalf.  Presently  he  is  pathetic 
and  furious  with  his  friends — "  Weil,  the 
friend  of  my  childhood,  for  whom  I  have  twice 
all  but  taken  sword  in  hand,  whom  I  rescued, 
sweating  fear,  from  my  friend  the  Marquis 
de  Mores  ;  Cure,  who  dandled  my  children 
while  he  was  getting  up  stories  against  me, 
and  who  has  sought  protection  against  me 


ESTERHAZY.  193 

from  a  general,  like  a  baby  of  four  from  its 
nurse."  All  owed  everything  to  him ;  all 
have  deserted  him. 

When  he  was  accused  of  treason  by 
Picquart,  and  Du  Paty  de  Clam  gave  him 
the  liberating  secret  document  to  blackmail 
the  General  Staff  with,  he  turned  the  screw 
on  the  generals  and  the  very  President  with 
the  cool,  undaunted  adroitness  of  a  Sforza. 
When  he  came  to  tell  the  tale  before  the 
Cour  de  Cassation  another  part  hit  his  fancy. 
He  was  only  doing  what  his  superiors  wished  : 
he  was  the  sentry  at  the  gate  of  Pompeii- 
all  loyalty  and  discipline,  and  deserted. 

Dodging  a  dun  or  holding  up  the  President 
of  the  Republic,  it  was  all  one  to  Esterhazy  : 
for  he  thought  himself  the  equal,  or  rather 
the  better,  of  everybody.  From  his  theatrical 
habit  of  looking  at  himself  he  seems  to  have 
grown  imbued  with  a  sense  of  the  superiority 
of  his  spirit  and  the  magnificence  of  his 
destiny.  He  had  all  the  attributes  of  a 
great  man,  except  greatness.  To  hear  him 
talk  he  might  be  a  Napoleon  at  the  very 
least.  And  because  he  had,  after  all,  never 
made  a  figure  in  the  world,  he  was  for  ever 

o 


194  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

railing  at  fortune.  H  e  was  born  a  disappointed 
man.  He  aspired  to  everything,  and  what 
he  got  was  nothing.  Half  genius  and  half 
madman,  ruined  by  his  own  extravagances,  a 
hereditary  consumptive,  without  patriotism, 
without  conscience,  gifted  and  soured,  he 
"  had  come  to  fear  nothing,  was  ready  to  do 
anything." 

But  to  come  back  to  the  Dreyfus  case  : 
did  he  write  the  bordereau  ?  Well,  he  says 
so,  and  the  best  experts  say  so  ;  so  we  may 
assume  it  as  probable,  if  not  certain,  he  did. 
But  was  he  a  traitor,  or  did  he,  as  he  says, 
write  it  to  order,  to  condemn  Dreyfus  and 
shield  others  ?  Who  knows  ?  Sometimes 
he  says  he  knows  that  Dreyfus  gave  up 
the  documents,  sometimes  he  says  he  did 
not.  He  used  to  deny  he  wrote  the 
bordereau  ;  now  he  says  it  was  traced — God 
knows  why — from  an  original  which  he  has 
to  this  day  in  his  pocket.  He  cannot 
understand  why  the  witnesses  at  Rennes 
did  not  say  what  they,  and  he,  knew ;  yet 
he  himself  says  nothing.  It  seems  most 
likely  that  it  was  he  who  sold  the  documents 
to  Schwarzkoppen.  And  yet  we  must  not 


ESTERHAZY.  1 95 

call  him  traitor,  for  that  is  a  crime  he  is 
not  capable  of.  Where  there  is  no  sense 
of  patriotism  there  can  be  no  consciousness 
of  treason.  In  his  times,  four  hundred  years 
ago,  everybody  did  it.  We  will  call  him 
merely  a  condottiere  drifted  into  his  wrong 
century. 


o  2 


196  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 


XIV. 
A  DRAWN  BATTLE  AND  A  ROUT. 

THE  24th  of  August  was  a  day  of  resound- 
ing battle.  It  began,  tamely  enough,  with 
the  fag  end  of  Dreyfus's  contemporaries  on 
the  General  Staff.  But  presently  "  Bring 
in  Colonel  Maurel,"  says  the  President. 
Colonel  Maurel  was  President  of  the  1894 
Court- Martial  which  condemned  Dreyfus. 
As  the  lean  face  and  huge  red  epaulettes 
of  the  little  sergeant-usher  appeared,  pre- 
ceding somebody  to  the  platform,  silence 
swept  over  the  hall,  and  eyes  unconsciously 
turned  to  Labori. 

The  Colonel — he  is  now  retired — was  a 
shrunken  man,  in  a  shapeless,  shabby  frock 
coat ;  his  face  was  small,  his  forehead  was 
low,  his  nose  concave  and  sharp-pointed, 
his  skin  grey-green,  his  back  humped.  He 
had  just  learned  of  an  accident  -  -  I  am 
afraid  a  fatal  one — to  one  of  his  children. 


A  DRAWN  BATTLE  AND  A  ROUT.   197 

But,  making  all  allowance,  you  sat  aghast 
that  such  a  mean  and  broken  atrophy 
should  have  commanded  a  regiment  and 
presided  over  the  case  that  has  shaken 
France  like  an  earthquake.  He  quavered 
through  his  deposition  in  a  voice  like  him- 
self ;  he  had  formed  his  opinions  on  the 
evidence — especially  on  that  of  Bertillon, 
Du  Paty,  and  Henry — and  so,  he  believed, 
had  the  other  judges.  Yes  ;  a  communica- 
tion had  been  received  from  General  Mercier, 
to  be  used  in  clearly  defined  conditions  of 
time  and  place ;  it  was  brought,  not  by 
Picquart,  as  that  witness  had  sworn,  but  by 
Du  Paty  de  Clam. 

He  quavered  to  the  end  :  "I  have  nothing 
else  to  say."  Then  upheaved  himself  Labori. 

"  What  were  the  documents  communi- 
cated ? " 

The  astounding  answer  came — "  I  do  not 
know.  I  read  out  the  first  document ;  I  did 
not  read  the  others  because  my  conviction 
was  formed."  Gently,  almost  tenderly — his 
habit  when  not  resisted — Labori  put  in  the 
deadly  retort.  Colonel  Maurel,  as  judge, 
knew  that  he  must  conscientiously  seek  light 


198  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

on  the  whole  case  :  he  knew  that  a  communi- 
cation he  received  from  the  Minister  must  be 
sincere  and  give  both  sides  of  the  question— 
for  the  accused  as  well  as  against.  Why 
then  did  he  not  read  the  documents  all 
through  ? 

"  I  cannot  answer,"  faltered  the  weak  reply. 
Labori  asked  for  Captain  Freystaetter,  who 
was  a  member  of  that  Court-Martial,  but  he 
was  not  there.  Then  he  asked  for  Mercier. 
He  had  not  yet  cross-examined  the  General, 
he  mildly  explained,  because  of  his  wound. 
"  As  General  Mercier  is  present,"  said 
the  President,  "  I  ask  him  kindly  to  step 
forward."  Up  stepped  the  neat,  familiar 
figure  ;  he  was  in  uniform.  It  was  business. 
It  was  to  the  death.  The  Court  hushed 
again,  feeling  tight  at  the  heart.  The  Com- 
missary of  the  Government  was  frankly 
frightened  :  he  begged  that  Labori  would  not 
discuss  things.  "  If  Major  Carriere  is  laying 
down  rules  on  which  we  are  agreed,"  said  the 
advocate  sweetly,  "  well  and  good.  If  he 
means  to  give  me  lessons,  I  do  not  accept 
them."  "  I  beg  you  not  to  discuss,"  said 
the  President. 


A  DRAWN  BATTLE  AND  A  ROUT.   199 

And  the  fight  began.  To  look  at  the  two 
you  would  have  said  there  was  only  one  in  it. 
Mercier  was  small,  by  comparison,  and 
slight  :  in  the  tight  black  tunic  and  red 
trousers  of  his  uniform  he  looked  yet  slighter. 
His  oratorical  equipment  was  slender  :  he 
had  but  one  gesture,  a  cramped  movement  of 
the  right  arm,  otherwise  he  kept  his  white 
gloved  hands  behind  his  back.  His  voice  was 
deep,  yet  hard  and  dry  like  the  croak  of  a 
bird  of  prey.  His  mental  equipment  we 
knew  to  be  small  also.  As  he  turned  to 
face  Labori — low  forehead,  hooked  nose, 
sallow  colour,  heavy  eyelids  and  skin  hanging 
loose  from  cheek  bone  to  neck — he  looked 
more  like  a  vulture  than  ever.  Above  him 
towered  Labori,  the  great  loose-jointed  figure 
wreathed  in  the  gown  that  hung  round  him 
like  a  black  toga — Labori  with  the  gestures 
that  fly  to  meet  the  word,  and  the  voice  that 
draws  like  music  and  shakes  like  thunder — 
Labori,  the  practised  cross-questioner,  the 
enthusiast,  the  man  who  has  nothing  against 
him,  the  man  with  all  the  advantage  of 
attack.  What  possibility  of  anything  but 
defeat  for  the  General  ?  But  Mercier  took 


200  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

up  his  position  and  faced  doggedly  towards 
his  enemy.     The  fight  began. 

Labori  opened  with  the  grounds  for  the 
charge  against  Dreyfus  in  1894.  Were  there 
other  charges  besides  the  bordereau  ?  Yes— 
the  secret  dossier.  Then  why  did  General 
Mercier  not  tell  the  other  Ministers  ?  He 
told  M.  Hanotaux  that  he  would  not  prose- 
cute on  the  bordereau  unless  there  were  other 
charges.  Now,  if  there  were,  why  did  he 
not  speak  of  them  ?  If  there  were  not — but 
he  has  just  said  there  were.  "  I  made  no 
engagement  with  M.  Hanotaux."  Then 
General  Mercier  contradicts — that  is  the 
most  moderate  word — M.  Hanotaux.  The 
Council  will  remember  that.  Now  if  the 
former  charges  were  serious,  why  was  the 
bordereau  dictated  to  Dreyfus  by  Du  Paty  ? 
Why  did  Du  Paty  say  that  if  Dreyfus  suc- 
ceeded there,  he  would  not  be  arrested  ? 
"  It  would  be  one  charge  the  more."  "  Then 
the  former  charges  "-—the  rich  voice  filled  the 
breathless  room — "the  former  charges  were 
not  convincing." 

He  beat  him  back  on  "  I  had  a  certain 
indecision ;"  he  buffeted  him  thence  to  "  No, 


A  DRAWN  BATTLE  AND  A  ROUT.  201 

there  were  as  yet  only  presumptions."  But 
buffeted  as  he  was,  Mercier  still  folded  his 
white  gloves  coolly  behind  his  back,  still  held 
up  his  obstinate  head.  Labori  went  on  to 
the  sudden  arrest :  was  that  because  Mercier 
was  being  attacked  in  the  Press  ?  But  here 
he  did  not  gain  a  foot ;  Mercier  was  accus- 
tomed to  being  attacked  in  the  Press ;  he  did 
not  care.  Labori  produced  a  letter  showing 
that  Henry  was  working  with  the  Libre 
Parole  to  force  the  Minister's  hand  ;  Mercier 
sullenly  wondered  whether  it  was  forged. 
Labori  brought  his  battery  up  to  shorter 
range :  why  was  the  bordereau  originally 
assigned  to  April  ?  Mercier  did  not  know. 
Not  know?  Then  M.  le  General  in  1894 
was  completely  ignorant  of  the  arguments  for 
Dreyfus's  guilt  ?  Back  goes  Mercier  a  foot : 
not  completely,  but  ignorant  of  the  details. 
Was  the  bordereau  then  a  detail  ?  Mercier 
stands  fast :  no,  but  it  was  the  prosecutor's 
business,  not  his,  to  fix  its  date. 

So  shifted  back  and  forth  the  stubborn 
duel.  Mercier  was  retreating  nearly  always, 
but  retreating  slowly,  doggedly,  with  his 
rearguard  facing  the  enemy.  He  refused  to 


202  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

give  any  account  of  his  thoughts ;  it  was 
quite  enough,  he  grimly  said,  to  have  to 
answer  for  one's  words  and  deeds.  When 
Labori  spoke  of  his  examination  as  an 
"  interrogatory "  —the  word  used  for  the 
examination  of  an  accused  person — and  as 
a  "discussion,"  Mercier  turned  sharply,  and 
for  the  moment  beat  him  back.  Once  he 
counter-attacked  smartly.  "  I  ask,"  said 
Labori,  "  what  has  been  done  with  the 
thirty-five  million  francs  which,  according 
to  General  Mercier,  have  been  sent  from 
England  and  Germany  for  the  cause  of 
Dreyfus?"  "Perhaps  I  might  ask  you 
that,"  retorted  the  General. 

Again  and  again  Labori  drove  him  to 
silence  or  refusal  to  answer  ;  but  he  never 
broke  him  up.  The  big  man  used  every 
artifice  of  eloquence  and  forensic  cleverness  ; 
you  could  see  his  face  and  all  his  gestures, 
and  he  seemed  a  terrible  antagonist.  Of  the 
little  man  you  could  only  see  the  smooth, 
narrow  back  of  his  head  and  the  clasped  white 
gloves.  He  looked  once  more  like  a  naughty 
boy  before  his  schoolmaster.  But  he  stood 
up  doggedly  under  his  punishment ;  he  came 


A  DRAWN  BATTLE  AND  A  ROUT.  203 

up  again  gamely  after  every  blow.  The 
cold,  passionless  voice  never  faltered.  As 
he  had  showed  no  hate  before  Dreyfus,  so 
he  showed  no  fear  before  Labori.  He  was 
still  the  Grand  Inquisitor — the  man  who 
was  as  ready  to  stand  torture  for  his  own 
faith  as  to  torture  others  for  theirs. 

Labori  shifted  his  battery  to  yet  another 
position.  The  letter  of  Panizzardi,  pre- 
sumably to  Schwarzkoppen,  beginning,  "  I 
send  you  the  manual"-— the  letter  of  which 
Henry  cut  off  the  top  and  the  bottom  for 
his  forgery,  the  letter  which  bears  the  date 
"  June,  1894,"  in  red  ink  at  the  top — when 
did  that  come  into  the  Intelligence  Depart- 
ment ?  Mercier  thought  that  perhaps 
General  Gonse  would  know.  General 
Gonse  came  up,  and  in  a  second  the  whole 
hall  was  in  a  tumult,  and  the  duel  had 
become  a  general  action.  Officer  after 
officer  sprang  up  in  the  body  of  the  hall, 
dashed  on  to  the  platform,  took  up  position, 
unlimbered,  opened  fire.  Gonse,  nervous 
and  reluctant ;  Roget,  waving  his  hand, 
dancing  about  the  platform,  his  neat  white 
moustache  bristling  with  rage  ;  Gribelin  the 


2O4  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

archivist,  delighted  to  hear  his  voice  again  ; 
Lauth  eager,  but  cool  and  ready —  the 
Alsatian  ! — when  everybody  else  was  losing 
his  head  ;  Carriere,  the  Government  Com- 
missary, fearful  of  what  this  wild  bull  of  a 
Labori  would  do  next — they  were  all  six  of 
them  in  action  together.  Mercier,  Roget, 
and  Gribelin  in  the  firing  line,  Gonse  and 
Lauth  in  support,  Carriere  in  reserve — and 
Labori  against  the  six,  pouring  in  invective, 
logic,  satire  like  case-shot.  The  echoes  of 
the  cannonade  were  tossed  from  wall  to  wall 
and  mingled  in  murmurs  under  the  roof. 
Then  they  sank  and  stilled  as  suddenly  as 
they  had  risen.  A  three-cornered  colloquy 
was  going  on  between  Labori,  Mercier,  and 
General  Chamoin,  the  courteous,  bald-headed 
gentleman  in  charge  of  the  secret  dossier, 
And  then  Labori  and  Mercier  were  both 
limbering  up  and  drawing  off  their  guns  for 
the  day. 

It  was  a  defeat  for  Mercier,  and  yet  it  had 
not  been  the  rout  his  enemies  had  hoped  for. 
He  had  made  important  admissions.  He  had 
allowed  that  his  knowledge  of  the  Dreyfus 
case,  and  even  his  conviction  of  his  guilt, 


A  DRAWN  BATTLE  AND  A  ROUT.  205 

dated  from  a  period  subsequent  to  the  trial 
of  1894 — that  is,  were  formed  at  a  time 
when,  in  moral  and  professional  self-defence, 
he  was  in  a  way  bound  to  hold  Dreyfus 
guilty.  It  had  been  made  clear  that  if  the 
bordereau  was  written  in  August,  1894, 
Panizzardi's  letter  about  the  manual,  dated 
June,  1894,  was,  supposing  it  and  its  date 
to  be  genuine,  no  evidence  against  Dreyfus. 
Thirdly,  and  most  damaging  for  Mercier, 
was  General  Chamoin's  statement  that 
Mercier  had  communicated  to  him  from 
Colonel  Du  Paty  de  Clam  a  version  of  the 
Panizzardi  telegram  beginning  with  the  words, 
"  The  Ministry  of  War  have  a  report  or  a 
proof  of  a  secret  offer  made  by  Dreyfus  to 
Germany."  This  was,  of  course,  a  wilful 
and  diabolical  falsification.  All  this  was  bad 
for  Mercier. — established  him  a  criminal, 
if  anybody  had  cared  about  that.  On  the 
other  hand,  Labori  had  got  nothing  else 
of  significance  out  of  him.  And  one  very 
important  point  Mercier  had  made — that 
whatever  had  or  had  not  been  done  in 
1894  was  irrelevant,  that  the  decision  of 
the  first  Court- Martial  had  been  quashed, 


206  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

and  that  the  only  question  now  was  the 
original  one  —  whether  or  not  Dreyfus 
gave  up  secrets  to  a  foreign  Power.  Thus 
Mercier  astutely  withdrew  his  weakest  point 
out  of  fire. 

*  *  *  * 

The  finish  and  crushing  climax  of  this 
fight  came  two  days  later.  Captain  Frey- 
staetter,  one  of  the  judges  of  1 894,  had  been 
called  for  on  the  24th,  but  was  not  present. 
On  the  26th,  sandwiched  between  two  de- 
vastating experts  in  handwriting,  he  was 
suddenly  there. 

He  came  up  on  the  platform — the  manliest 
figure  of  a  man  that  had  yet  stood  on  it. 
Under  the  uniform— black  tunic,  dark  blue 
trousers — of  the  Marine  Infantry  you  could 
see  that  while  not  very  tall,  he  was  broad, 
and  built  with  great  strength.  He  wore  a 
long  moustache  and  pointed  beard,  his 
cropped  hair  was  prematurely  grey,  his  face 
lined  and  worn  to  a  brow,  nose,  cheek-bone 
and  chin,  yet  hard,  steadfast,  and  resolute. 
Were  he  an  Englishman  you  would  put  him 
down  to  the  Navy ;  and  it  did  not  need  the 


A  DRAWN  BATTLE  AND  A  ROUT.  207 

four  war-medals  on  his  breast  to  tell  you  that 
while  other  men  in  this  case  were  riding  in 
the  Bois,  Freystaetter  had  been  pushing 
through  the  jungles  of  Tongking  and  Mada- 
gascar. But  more  than  that  was  in  his  face 
—in  the  contracted  brows  and  the  eyes  half 
hunted,  half  determined.  I  had  noticed  it 
that  morning  in  the  hotel  as  he  moved  from 
seat  to  seat,  picked  up  papers  and  threw 
them  down  next  second,  could  settle 
to  nothing.  It  was  the  face  of  a  man 
who  has  been  on  bad  terms  with  his 
conscience,  who  knows  that  to  reconcile  him- 
self with  it  will  mean  the  loss  of  half  his 
friends,  may  likely  mean  the  ruin  of  his  whole 
life — and  who  is  about  to  do  it. 

He  took  the  oath  and  in  a  firm  voice  began 
to  speak.  The  sleepy  hall  looked  up — and 
in  thirty  seconds  it  was  awake,  breathless, 
pulseless,  trembling.  Freystaetter  used  no 
preface,  told  no  story,  made  no  speech.  He 
simply  stood  up  and  said,  "  I  was  a  member 
of  the  1894  Court-Martial.  My  conviction 
was  formed  on  the  evidence  of  the  experts,  of 
Du  Paty  and  of  Henry.  Only  I  must  add 
that  I  was  slightly  influenced  by  the  secret 


208  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

documents  communicated.  They  were  (i) 
a  biographical  notice  charging  Dreyfus  with 
treason  committed  at  the  School  of  Pyro- 
technic at  Bourges,  at  the  Ecole  de  Guerre, 
and  on  the  General  Staff;  (2)  the  canaille 
de  D—  document ;  (3)  the  Davignon 
letter ;  (4)  a  telegram  from  a  foreign  military 
attache  definitely  asserting  the  guilt  of  the 
accused.  This  telegram,  if  I  remember  right, 
ran  :  Dreyfus  arrested^  emissary  warned" 
The  whole  hall  leapt  with  excitement.  It 
did  not  need  Labori  rushing  in  to  follow  up 
the  blow  to  remind  us  that  here  was  a 
telegram  that  really  exculpated  Dreyfus 
presented  in  a  falsified  form  to  inculpate  him 
—when  General  Mercier  had  sworn  it  was 
never  presented  at  all.  Or  that  here  were 
four  documents  read  out — when  Colonel 
Maurel  had  sworn  he  had  read  but  one.  We 
had  come  to  it  at  last — the  lie  direct. 

In  dead  silence  Maurel  quaked  up  to  the 
platform  and  turned  a  green  face,  not  towards 
the  President,  but  up  towards  Labori.  His 
voice  was  all  but  a  shriek,  yet  clear,  as  he 
raised  a  forefinger  and  said,  "  I  said  I  only 
read  one  document,  but  I  did  not  say  that 


A  DRAWN  BATTLE  AND  A  ROUT.  209 

only  one  was  read."  A  low  roar  thrilled 
from  the  hall.  He  went  on,  "As  M. 
Freystaetter  has  told  all,  I  passed  the  papers 
to  my  neighbour,  saying  I  was  tired."  Again 
that  muffled  roar  of  wonder,  of  indignation, 
of  anguished  agitation.  "Had  the  telegram 
the  words  Emissary  warned?1  "I  do  not 
remember.  I  only  read  the  documents  in  a 
listless  way."  Then  broke  in  again  the  voice 
of  Freystaetter,  harsh  with  emotion,  but  loud 
and  insistent.  "  Not  only  did  I  read  them, 
but  Colonel  Maurel  had  them  all  in  his  hands 
and  commented  on  each  as  he  passed  it 
to  us." 

General  Mercier  came  up  to  the  bar, 
unflinching  as  ever,  and  even  the  cold  in- 
quisitor's voice  rang  with  passion.  "  What 
was  the  document  betrayed  by  Dreyfus  at 
the  School  of  Pyrotechnic  ?  " 

"It  concerned  a  shell." 

"Then  Captain  Freystaetter  is  caught  in 
the  act  of  lying.  The  Robin  shell  was  not 
betrayed  until  1895.  As  for  the  telegram, 
I  still  maintain  it  was  not  shown  to  the 
Council." 

Freystaetter  stood  with   his  kepi  crushed 

p 


210  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

under  his  arm,  his  head  and  jaw  thrust  for- 
ward as  he  turned  on  Mercier  with  all  the 
stubborn  rage  of  a  fighter  and  a  little  of  the 
contempt  of  a  plain  man  for  a  liar.  "I  say 
the  words  were  in  the  telegram,"  he  hoarsely 
cried.  "  I  never  said  that  there  was  a 
telegram  or  any  document  whatever  speaking 
of  a  shell.  I  simply  said  that  there  was  in 
the  commentary  an  accusation  which  con- 
cerned treason  at  the  School  of  Pyrotechnic, 
and  that  that  treason  did  concern  a  shell.  I 
am  saying  nothing  to-day  of  which  I  am  not 
absolutely  sure."  Every  soul  in  court  be- 
lieved him. 

"  I  must  insist  that  M.  Du  Paty  de  Clam 
be  medically  examined,"  cried  Labori. 
"  General  Mercier  says  Du  Paty  made  up 
the  packet."  "  I  did  not,"  said  Mercier, 
fighting  to  the  last,  "  I  said  that  I  did  not 
make  it  up  myself."  Now  the  hall  was 
dead  silent  as  with  consternation.  We 
seemed  to  be  on  the  very  brink  of  who  knew 
what  bottomless  abyss  of  fraud.  "  I  now 
learn,"  added  Mercier,  "  from  General  de 
Boisdeffre  that  it  was  Colonel  Sandherr." 

On  the  choking  hall  fell  the  rich  thrilling 


A  DRAWN  BATTLE  AND  A  ROUT.  211 

voice  of  Labori.  "  Dead,"  he  said — "  always 
the  dead.  Sandherr  dead !  Henry  dead ! 
Du  Paty  de  Clam  does  not  come." 

The  President  checked  him  sharply,  and 
heaving  agitation  sank  to  the  mill-pond  of 
expert  evidence  in  handwriting.  Captain 
Freystaetter  came  down  looking  like  a  brave 
man  who  had  seen  the  Devil — scared  but 
defiant.  He  sat  down  all  by  himself,  neither 
with  the  Dreyfusard  witnesses  nor  with  the 
Anti-Dreyfusards.  In  the  place  reserved  for 
simple  soldiers,  who  serve  France,  eschew 
party  and  tell  the  truth,  he  sat  down  alone. 


I'    2 


212   THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 


XV. 

THE    EXPERTS. 

THERE  was  once  a  time,  in  the  childhood  of 
the  world,  when  we  were  anxious  to  see 
Dreyfus  taken  to  and  from  the  court  of  a 
morning.  In  those  simple  days  they  set  a 
watch  about  all  the  streets  whence  he  could 
possibly  be  seen.  As  you  approach  the  Lycee, 
out  of  the  speckless,  leisurely  streets  of 
Rennes,  you  come  on  a  barrier  of  armed 
men.  Eight  cavalry  horses  are  yawning 
over  eight  troopers,  who  hold  their  bridles  as 
they  sit  on  chairs  in  the  middle  of  the  road. 
Half  a  dozen  infantry  soldiers  sit  on  chairs 
on  the  pavement.  Two  gendarmes  sit  on 
chairs  in  the  gutter. 

A  little  white  ticket  will  take  you  through 
the  cordon,  and  you  are  under  the  walls  of 
the  Lyc6e.  A  buzz  issues  through  the 
windows.  Half  way  along  the  wall  is  a 
wooden  water-pipe,  down  which  trickles  a 
scanty  rivulet  of  envelopes — news  of  the 


THE  EXPERTS.  213 

Dreyfus  case.  About  the  lower  end  of  it  a 
gendarme  and  about  half  a  dozen  messenger 
boys  sit  on  chairs.  As  you  pass  in — I  say 
"  you "  ;  anybody  that  likes  can  borrow  a 
ticket  and  pass  in  to-day — there  are  half 
a  dozen  soldiers  sitting  on  a  seat  and 
spitting  on  the  flags.  The  courtyard  is 
thickly  sprinkled  with  witnesses  and 
journalists  smoking  cigarettes.  In  the  hall 
itself,  before  the  judges,  a  bald,  grey- 
bearded  old  gentleman,  with  a  baggy  jacket 
and  incredibly  short  legs,  is  sitting  in  a  chair 
and  giving  his  views  on  handwriting.  His 
name  is  Belhomme,  and  there  is  no  need  to 
say  more  of  him  than  Esterhazy,  whose  cause 
he  is  pleading,  has  put  on  record — "  This 
Belhomme  is  an  idiot ;  you  have  only  to 
look  at  him ! "  The  whole  hall — judges, 
counsel,  public — looks  as  if  a  shrapnel  shell 
had  burst  over  it.  Some  are  flung  back- 
wards, with  their  heads  over  the  backs  of 
chairs ;  some  have  fallen  heavily  forward, 
with  their  heads  on  tables  ;  some  heads  have 
collapsed  into  chests  ;  all  are  half  dead. 

The    experts    in    handwriting    began    on 
Friday   morning,  the  25th  of  August;  it  was 


214  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

now  the  29th,  and  they  were  not  over  yet. 
All  but  the  two  first  were  inaudible ;  it 
mattered  the  less  in  that  they  all  contradicted 
each  other  positively.  Of  the  two  audible 
one  was  irrelevant  and  the  other  incompre- 
hensible. The  first  appeared  to  the  unofficial 
public  as  a  bald  head  and  the  back  of  the 
amplest  frock  coat  I  ever  saw.  In  front  of 
these  was  M.  Gobert,  expert,  as  he  assured 
us  in  a  fat  voice,  to  the  Bank  of  France. 
"  That  means  something,"  whispered  an 
enthusiast  beside  me,  and  so  it  doubtless 
does,  only  neither  that  nor  anything  else 
could  mean  all  that  M.  Gobert  meant  it  to 
mean.  On  the  strength  of  being  expert  to 
the  Bank  of  France,  M.  Gobert  gave  a 
detailed  history  of  the  commencement  of  the 
Dreyfus  case.  He  described  the  bearing  of 
various  generals,  which  appeared  to  him 
highly  suspicious.  For  example,  one  day  he 
found  General  de  Boisdeffre  surrounded  by 
a  group  of  officers  ;  but  on  his  appearance  the 
General  asked  them  to  go  away.  That  re- 
minded M.  Gobert  (expert  to  the  Bank  of 
France)  that  in  1894  he  was  treated  as  a  sus- 
pect witness  because  he  wished,  before  giving 


THE  EXPERTS.  215 

his  conclusion,  to  know  the  name  of  the 
accused.  "  But  I  will  not  complain,"  he  said 
magnanimously,  after  complaining  for  a 
quarter  of  an  hour;  "that  unfortunate,"  he 
waved  himself  towards  Dreyfus,  "  has  suffered 
more  than  I  have."  After  that  he  talked  for 
half  an  hour  about  himself,  and  suddenly  said, 
"  Gentlemen,  I  do  not  wish  to  speak  much 
of  myself;  but  I  will ;  for,  gentlemen,  I  am 
expert  to  the  Bank  of  France."  At  the  end 
he  said,  "  I  am  sorry  my  time  is  limited  ; 
otherwise  I  could  prove  to  you  the  date 
of  the  bordereau"  Now  the  date  of  the 
bordereau  is  the  principal  crux  of  the  case. 
"  I  do  not  insist,"  added  the  magnanimous 
Gobert. 

"If  you  can  tell  us  you  may,"  said  the 
President,  ever  hopeful  of  enlightenment. 
"  Why,  then,  there  is  a  letter  of  Esterhazy 
dated  August  i7th,  which  I  call  the  key  of 
the  Dreyfus  case.  It  is  written  on  the  same 
paper  as  the  bordereau,  and  in  it  he  says  he 
has  just  been  for  a  fortnight  to  the  school  of 
firing  at  Chalons.  The  bordereau  concludes 
with  the  phrase,  '  I  am  just  starting  for  the 
manoeuvres.'  That  phrase,"  said  the 


216  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

expert  slowly,  "has  its  importance."  (It  has 
been  discussed  by  all  the  master-minds  of 
France  for  five  years.)  "  Now  Esterhazy 
on  August  1 7th  had  just  been  to  the 
manoeuvres  for  a  fortnight,  therefore  he  was 
just  going  to  the  manoeuvres  about  July  25th. 
That,"  he  added  with  the  proud  humility 
of  the  true  discoverer,  "  I  give  you  for  what 
it  is  worth."  As  everybody  knew  the  facts 
and  everybody  had  discussed  the  inference 
for  the  first  fortnight  or  so  of  the  trial,  there 
seemed  to  be  an  impression  that  it  was  not 
worth  very  much.  One  of  the  judges  had 
the  idea  to  ask  him  some  questions  as  to 
handwriting,  but  on  that  point  the  expert  to 
the  Bank  of  France  was  jejune.  "  I  did 
notice  something,"  he  said,  "but  I  have 
forgotten  the  details." 

He  went  off  heavily,  and  M.  Bertillon 
bounded  on  to  the  scene. 

He  was  a  little  man  in  a  black  frock-coat, 
and  more  and  blacker  hair  than  you  would 
think  could  grow — his  head  a  hogged  mane, 
his  cheeks  and  lips  and  chin  like  the  bursting 
of  an  over-stuffed  sofa.  You  felt  that  if  you 
passed  your  hand  over  his  head  it  would 


THE  EXPERTS.  217 

draw  blood  from  you  and  sparks  of  electricity 
from  him.  He  bounded  up,  and  then  turned 
and  looked  behind  him  :  toiling  in  his  rear 
were  four  soldiers,  stalwart  beyond  the  wont 
of  France,  bent  double  under  a  table  and 
vast  portfolios.  These  were  his  professional 
properties  --  the  plant  wherewith  he  was 
about  to  demonstrate  mathematically  the 
new  Bertillon  system — the  guilt  of  Dreyfus. 

In  a  low  but  firm  and  rapid  voice  he  began 
to  expound.  Presently,  warming  to  his 
work,  he  leaped  upon  his  portfolio,  tore  it 
open,  and  dashed  at  the  President  with  a 
framed  photograph.  He  darted  from  judge 
to  judge  ;  the  Government  Commissary  and 
the  Registrar  and  the  counsel  gathered  round, 
till  nothing  remained  of  Bertillon  but  a 
muffled  patter  and  a  central  wriggle.  Then, 
suddenly,  with  a  wild  whoop,  he  burst  out 
of  the  throng,  waving  the  frame  round  and 
round  his  head  like  a  tomahawk.  "  Five 
millimetres  reticulation,"  he  yelled  in  triumph  ; 
"  12.5  centimetres  gabarit  and  a  millimetre 
and  a  quarter  imbrication  !  Always  you  find 
it — always — always  !  " 

I  desire  to  speak  with  respect  of  the  new 


218  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

Bertillon  system,    because   the  other  day  I 
almost  understood  it.     It  begins  thus.     Here 
is  the  bordereau  :  is  it  a  genuine  document 
or  a  forgery  ?     I  rule  horizontal  and  vertical 
lines  over  it  at  a  distance  of  five  millimetres, 
and  what  do  I  find  ?     I  find  that  the  words 
which  occur  twice — manoeuvres,  modification, 
disposition,   copie — all  begin,  within  a   milli- 
metre, in  exactly  the  same  part  of  one  of  the 
squares  I    have  ruled.     It  is   i   chance  in  5 
this  might  happen  in  any  single  case  ;  against 
its  happening  in  all  these  cases  it  is   16  in 
10,000.     Add  all  the  other  words — which  he 
did   not  specify — that  follow    the  same  law, 
and  the  chance  becomes    100,000,000  to   i. 
Conclusion  :  this  could  not  happen  naturally. 
The  bordereau  is  forged. 

.Now,  who  forged  it,  and  why?  Take, 
again,  the  polysyllables  that  are  repeated  in 
the  bordereau — manoeuvres,  modification,  and 
the  rest.  Place  one  over  the  other,  and  you 
find  the  beginnings  coincide,  while  the  ends 
do  not.  But  shift  the  word  that  comes 
earliest  a  millimetre  and  a  quarter  to  the 
right,  and  the  ends  coincide  also. 

This   is   all   very   curious.       But   when   I 


THE  EXPERTS.  219 

came  to  examine  the  writing  of  Alfred 
Dreyfus  done  in  the  War  Office,  imagine 
my  astonishment  to  find  that  it  also  pre- 
sented the  same  peculiarities.  Only  there 
were  many  letters  in  the  bordereau  which 
differed  from  those  used  by  Dreyfus — par- 
ticularly an  "  o,"  in  the  form  of  a  little  circle 
in  the  line  connecting  the  letters  before  and 
after  it,  and  a  double  "  s,"  with  the  first  letter 
short  and  the  second  long,  whereas  Dreyfus 
made  the  first  "  s "  long  and  the  second 
short. 

Next  I  took  the  letters  seized  in  Dreyfus's 
house.  Imagine  my  astonishment  to  find 
that  the  writing  of  Mme.  Dreyfus  and 
Mathieu  Dreyfus  presented  exactly  the 
forms  of  letters  used  in  the  bordereau, 
except  the  double  "s"!  Then  I  found  a 
letter  dated  "  Muhlhausen,"  and  signed 
"Alice";  imagine  my  astonishment  to  find 
that  Alice  made  her  double  "  s "  exactly 
like  the  writer  of  the  bordereau  !  Then  I 
investigated  a  letter  of  Mathieu  Dreyfus— 
a  year  old — found  in  the  prisoner's  blotting 
book.  Imagine  my  astonishment  to  find 
that  its  polysyllables  presented  just  the 


220   THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

same  phenomena  as  those  of  the  bordereau 
and  Alfred  Dreyfus's  work  at  the  War 
Office  !  It  contained  the  phrase  "  quelques 
renseignements"  which  is  also  in  the 
bordereau  ;  place  one  on  the  other,  and  the 
beginning  and  end  coincide  ;  shift  the  phrase 
from  the  blotting-book  a  millimetre  and  a 
quarter  to  the  right,  and — imagine — my— 
astonishment ! — the  middles  coincide  also. 

Now,  why  was  it  done  ?  It  is  obvious  who 
did  it.  Who  but  Dreyfus  had  access  both  to 
the  War  Office  and  his  own  blotting-book  ? 
The  case  is  now  clear.  Dreyfus  wished,  in 
case  his  treason  was  detected,  to  have  a 
defence  ready.  Therefore  he  forged  the  docu- 
ment to  imitate  his  own  writing  with  touches 
of  his  wife's  and  Mathieu's  and  Alice's. 
If  his  treasonable  documents  were  found  on 
him — as  in  his  overcoat  or  in  his  desk  at  the 
War  Office — he  could  say,  "  This  is  a  forgery 
—a  plot  against  me  !  "  and  demonstrate  by 
the  five-millimetre  squares  and  coincidences 
of  words  that  the  thing  was  traced.  If  the 
thing  were  found  on  him  at  the  War  Office 
he  could  point  to  the  official  documents  he 
had  written  as  the  basis  of  the  fraud  ;  if  at 


THE  EXPERTS.  221 

home,  to  Mathieu's  letter  and  his  wife's  and 
Alice's.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  one  of  his 
documents  went  astray,  undated  and  un- 
signed, and  were  recognised  as  his  hand- 
writing— which  is  what  actually  did  happen 
—he  could  point  to  Mathieu's  "  o "  and 
Alice's  double  "  s  "  as,  proofs  that  it  must  be 
in  the  handwriting  of  somebody  else. 

Nay,  more ;  he  actually  did  begin  that 
contemplated  defence.  He  said  to  Henry 
and  to  Cochefert  that  this  was  a  plot.  He 
said  to  Du  Paty  de  Clam,  "  They  have 
stolen  my  handwriting."  He  said  to 
d'Ormescheville,  "They  have  taken  bits 
from  a  letter  of  mine."  Why,  then,  did  he 
not  pursue  that  line  of  defence  ?  Because  he 
saw  I  had  detected  him.  "  When  he  heard 
me  say  '  demicentimetric  reticulations,'  "  said 
M.  Bertillon,  with  pardonable  pride,  "his 
face  congestioned,  and  he  said,  audibly,  '  the 
wretch  ! ' 

But  how  did  he  do  it?  He  could  not 
have  a  model  ready  of  every  word  he  was 
ever  likely  to  use  ;  therefore  he  could  not 
have  traced  the  bordereau  from  his  War 
Office  letters  nor  yet  from  the  writing  of  Alice 


222  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

or  Mathieu.  The  explanation  lies  in  one 
word — gabarit.  A  gabarit,  as  its  inventor 
handsomely  allows,  might  just  as  well  be 
called  anything  else  ;  however,  we  will  go  on 
calling  it  gabarit.  I  like  the  sound.  A 
gabarit  is  a  master-word  slid  along  the  line 
of  writing  under  the  thin  paper  you  are 
writing  on.  You  form  your  letters  on  it. 
When  the  letter  under  your  pen  is  not  the 
letter  you  want  to  write  you  retouch  it,  just 
as  you  might  retouch  and  alter  letters  of 
your  own  writing  into  something  else — could 
make  "  o "  into  " d,"  for  instance,  or  "i" 
into  "  1."  Dreyfus's  gabaritic  master-word 
was  inttr&t,  written  end  to  end  again  and 
again.  Only  it  was  written  not  in  one  series, 
but  in  two,  one  over  the  other — the  second 
beginning  a  millimetre  and  a  quarter  to  the 
right  of  the  beginning  of  the  first.  That 
accounts  for  the  coincidence  of  the  two 
"  quelques  renseignements "  and  the  other 
repeated  polysyllables  when  you  shift  them 
that  distance.  Dreyfus  began  the  long  words 
on  letters  of  one  of  the  chains  formed  by  the 
word  "  inttr&t?  and  then  in  the  middle  of  it 
shifted  on  to  the  other.  The  idea  was  to 


THE  EXPERTS.  223 

vary  the  writing  and  make  it  look  natural ; 
at  the  same  time  he  knew  that,  if  it  suited 
his  defence,  he  could  always  show  that  it 
was  traced. 

So,  if  you  write  inter etint£retinUr£t  .  .  . 
long  enough  and  then  write  over  it — begin- 
ning a  millimetre  and  a  quarter  to  the  right 
of  the  leftmost  point  of  the  first  "  i  " — inUret- 
inttretinte'ret ,  .  .  again — there  is  your  gabarit, 
and  you  can  write  the  bordereau  for  yourself 
just  as  surely  as  Dreyfus  did.  And  that  is 
the  new  Bertillon  system. 

Gabarit  :  the  new  parlour  game — it  will 
be  an  excellent  amusement  for  the  long 
winter  evenings.  However,  as  I  say,  it 
should  be  taken  seriously,  for  it  is  amazingly 
clever.  If  I  had  seen  the  diagrams  I  should 
probably  understand  it  better  and  think  it 
cleverer  still.  We  know  from  Captain 
Freystaetter  that  it  impressed  the  Court- 
Martial  of  1894  ;  I  think  it  also  impressed 
the  Court-Martial  of  1899.  It  seems  to  me 
a  perfectly  feasible  and  convenient  way  of 
disguising  your  hand,  and  I  do  not  dare  to 
criticise  it  on  its  own  ground.  I  will  only 
say  that  it  seems  also  a  very  convenient  way 


224  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

of  proving  to  a  half-honest  man,  who  wishes 
to  believe  Dreyfus  guilty,  that  Dreyfus  is 
guilty. 

As  for  its  parent,  when  he  had  finished 
his  deposition  he  had  finished  the  Dreyfus 
case.  He  did  not  even  pretend  to  take  any 
notice  of  his  cross-examination.  He  trotted 
up  and  down  about  the  platform  packing  up 
his  luggage  ;  if  anybody  asked  a  question, 
he  just  looked  up  and  said,  "  Very  likely. 
I  don't  know.  I  don't  care." 

And  then  on  the  top  of  him  came  a  gentle- 
man named  Matthias  George  Paraf  Javal. 
(That  would  make  a  good  gabarit,  by  the 
way — -parafjavalparafjavalparafjav  .  .  .)  He 
brought  a  blackboard,  at  which  he  shook  his 
fist  and  made  most  horrible  grimaces,  ex- 
pounding the  while  in  a  squeaky  voice  the 
theory  that  Bertillon's  measurements  are  all 
wrong,  and  that  the  bordereau  does  not  as 
a  matter  of  fact  fit  the  gabarit.  Later 
came  on  M.  Bernard,  a  mining  engineer— 
of  course,  he  would  know — explaining  that 
Bertillon's  theory  is  the  negation  of  all  logic 
and  the  abrogation  of  the  laws  of  probability. 
We  may  leave  it  to  them  to  fight  out,  which 


THE  EXPERTS.  225 

they  were  only  too  anxious  to  do ;  only, 
happily,  the  President  would  not  let  them 
have  it  out  in  court. 

In  the  meantime  I — if  I  may — will  suggest 
one  or  two  considerations  of  my  own.  The 
weak  point  of  the  system  is  that  it  was  too 
plainly  built  on  Dreyfus's  guilt  instead  of 
Dreyfus's  guilt  resulting  from  it.  If  I 
were  a  traitor  and  wanted  to  mix  somebody 
else's  handwriting  with  my  own,  I  should  not 
select  my  wife's  and  my  brother's  ;  and  if  I 
used  Alice's,  I  should  not  leave  her  letters 
lying  about  my  house.  If  I  were  clever 
enough  to  use  a  master-word  so  as  to  disclaim 
my  writing  in  case  of  detection,  I  should  prob- 
ably be  clever  enough  to  know  that  in  case 
of  detection  my  house  would  certainly  be 
searched,  and  I  should  not  leave  my  master- 
word  lying  in  my  blotting-book.  Finally,  if 
I  were  such  a  careful  traitor  as  to  write  on 
a  master-word,  I  should  not  send  covering 
letters  with  my  documents  at  all.  M.  Ber- 
tillon  asked  himself  this  question — Why  the 
covering  letter  ? — and  concluded  that  it  was 
written  on  the  master-word  as  a  means  of 
defence,  as  explained  above.  But  presumably 

Q 


226  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

the  documents  of  which  the  bordereau  speaks 
were  also  written  on  the  gabarit,  since 
they  were  just  as  likely  to  be  seized  or  to 
miscarry  as  the  covering  letter.  It  would  be 
no  use  disguising  the  one  and  not  the  other, 
and  if  the  documents  were  disguised,  why 
send  the  bordereau  ?  Rather  than  go  out  of 
my  way  to  run  unnecessary  risk  and  do  un- 
necessary work  on  a  gabarit,  I  should  almost 
choose  not  to  be  a  traitor  at  all. 


227 


XVI. 

THE  CONFESSION. 

Ira  prisoner  in  England  were  stated  to  have 
made  a  confession  of  guilt  sandwiched 
between  two  energetic  protestations  of  in- 
nocence ;  if  he  had  at  no  other  time  made 
anything  even  distantly  resembling  a  con- 
fession ;  if  the  supposed  confession  rested  on 
the  testimony  of  only  one  living  witness ;  if 
that  witness  had  sometimes  asserted  and 
sometimes  denied  the  statement  he  came  into 
court  to  support ;  if  the  confession  had  not 
been  made  public  for  over  two  years  from 
the  time  it  was  said  to  have  been  made ;  if 
the  witness  to  it  acknowledged  that,  having 
made  a  note  of  the  words  used  some  thirty 
hours  after  the  event,  he  had  kept  it  three 
years  and  then  suddenly  destroyed  it,  at  the 
moment  when  it  became  public  property ;  if, 
finally,  the  prisoner,  knowing  nothing  of  the 
fact  that  the  alleged  confession  had  been 
published,  had  been  interrogated  on  the 

Q  2 


228   THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

subject,  and  had  quoted  his  expression  in 
words  which  almost  exactly  coincided  with 
the  alleged  confession,  yet  meant  something 
absolutely  different  and  contradictory — what 
would  an  English  judge  say  to  such  a 
confession  ? 

You  do  not  need  me  to  tell  you.  The 
English  judge  would  refuse  to  hear  another 
word  of  it.  But  the  French,  in  perfect  good 
faith,  look  at  confessions  in  quite  a  different 
way.  Our  justice  aims  at  proving  a  man  did 
a  thing  ;  that  of  France  at  inducing  him  to 
say  he  did  it.  The  whole  duty  of  a  jiige 
tf  instruction — all  the  browbeating  cross- 
examination  which  is  volleyed  from  the  bench 
at  a  French  prisoner,  and  which  seems  to  us 
so  contrary  to  the  spirit  of  justice — is  founded 
on  the  theory  that  the  best,  even  the  only 
satisfactory,  proof  of  guilt  is  the  confession  of 
the  accused.  "Has  he  confessed  ? "  is  the 
Frenchman's  first  question  when  he  hears  a 
man  is  arrested.  And,  having  been  brought 
up  in  the  belief  that  confession  is  the  first 
duty  of  a  criminal,  he  usually  has. 

Therefore  this  alleged  confession  of 
Dreyfus,  hall"  an  hour  before  his  degradation, 


THE  CONFESSION.  229 

to  Lebrun- Renault,  the  captain  of  gendarmes 
who  was  on  guard  over  him,  has  been 
considered  of  capital  importance  by  most 
Frenchmen.  Some  of  the  principal  witnesses 
in  this  very  trial  said  that  they  placed  it  first 
among  the  evidences  of  guilt.  It  was  first 
made  public  by  M.  Cavaignac  in  the  Chamber 
in  1898,  and  was  ordered  to  be  posted  up  in 
every  commune  in  France.  Lebrun-Renault 
leaped  in  a  day  from  nothingness  to  universal 
fame. 

On  the  last  day  of  August  we  began  the 
public  sitting  late  ;  the  Court  had  sat  with 
closed  doors  to  consider  technical  and  very 
secret  questions  of  artillery.  Nobody  quite 
knew  who  would  be  the  first  witness  in  the 
public  part  of  the  sitting.  A  man  was 
fetched  in  by  the  usher  in  a  dark  uniform  ; 
as  he  went  up  to  the  bar  I  noticed  that  he 
wore  a  shiny  black  belt,  unlike  an  officer, 
just  like  a  gendarme.  He  was  a  big,  beefy 
man  with  a  big,  ruddy,  square-cheeked  face 
and  a  very  big  moustache ;  he  had  the  air 
of  being  strong  but  not  well  knit — power 
without  the  activity  to  apply  it.  He  saluted 
the  Court  with  a  tremendous  flourish,  and  1 


230  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

said  to  myself  that  he  looked  very  much  less 
like  a  soldier  than  a  policeman.  Next 
instant,  in  an  abrupt  voice  as  big  as  himself, 
he  announced  his  name — Lebrun-Renault. 

He  gave  his  evidence  like  a  policeman- 
like  a  policeman  who  has  light-heartedly 
given  evidence  against  a  prisoner  on  what  he 
thought  a  matter  of  forty  shillings  or  a  week, 
and  then  finds  himself  before  the  House  of 
Lords.  He  told  his  story  simply,  unhesitat- 
ingly and  very  loudly  ;  but  his  words  came 
out  in  jerky  mouthfuls  that  seemed  to  suggest 
nervousness.  To  my  mind  he  was  quite  sure 
he  was  telling  the  truth,  but  was  a  little 
frightened  of  the  enormous  importance  that 
had  suddenly  fallen  upon  him.  You  can 
judge  of  his  simple  nature  when  he  said,  "  I 
spoke  to  him  of  New  Caledonia,  which  I 
knew,  and  where  I  thought  he  might  be 
sent ;  in  short,  I  behaved  to  Captain  Dreyfus 
with  all  possible  humanity."  But  when  it 
came  to  cross-examination  he  resolutely 
refused  to  be  drawn.  Before  the  Cour  de 
Cassation  he  had  said,  in  his  beefy,  unjudicial 
way,  "  The  declarations  of  Dreyfus  can  quite 
well  be  considered  as  not  a  confession  : "  it 


THE  CONFESSION.  231 

was  plain  to  the  eye  that  Lebrun-Renault  was 
perfectly  ready  from  day  to  day  to  consider 
anything  as  either  itself  or  its  opposite. 
To-day,  however,  he  was  more  wary.  "  Con- 
sider it  what  you  like,"  he  said  with  breezy 
tolerance.  "  Some  may  consider  it  a  con- 
fession, others  an  explanation  of  his  conduct. 
That  is  every  man's  own  affair.  I  give  no 
opinion.  I  only  judge  the  fact.  Dreyfus 
said  so  and  so  to  me  ;  that's  all."  He  did 
indeed  explain  his  own  conduct  in  one  par- 
ticular :  General  Mercier  sent  him  to  tell  the 
President  of  the  confession  next  day,  but  he 
did  not  do  so  because  he  overheard  somebody 
in  Casimir-Perier's  room  speaking  rudely  of 
him.  With  this  one  exception  Lebrun- 
Renault  told  his  story,  but  bluntly  declined 
to  do  any  thinking  about  it.  Thinking,  he 
all  but  admitted,  was  not  his  strong  point. 

However,  Lebrun- Renault's  statement  was 
not  all.  He  said  that  there  was  also  in  the 
room  at  the  time  a  Captain  d'Attel,  who  is 
now  dead.  So  next,  in  the  French  manner, 
we  had  a  captain  to  swear  that  d'Attel  told 
him  he  had  heard  Dreyfus  confess,  and  then 
a  lieutenant-colonel  to  swear  that  Lebrun- 


232  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

Renault  told  him  he  had  heard  Dreyfus 
confess,  and  then  a  major  to  swear  that  the 
captain  had  told  him  that  d'Attel  had  told 
him  that  Dreyfus  had  confessed,  and  then  a 
first-class  controller  to  swear  that  the  lieu- 
tenant-colonel had  told  him  that  Lebrun- 
Renault  had  told  him  that  Dreyfus  had 
confessed.  I  was  waiting  to  hear  myself 
called  on  to  swear  I  had  heard  the  controller 
tell  the  Court  that  the  lieutenant-colonel 
told  him  Leb run- Renault  told  him  Dreyfus 
had  told  him  he  delivered  documents— 
when  I  heard  General  Gonse  admitting 
that  when  challenged  by  Picquart  as  to 
the  guilt  of  Dreyfus  he  said  nothing 
about  the  alleged  confession.  Presently 
came  on  a  retired  Major— Forzinetti,  by 
the  same  token,  who  was  governor  of  the 
Cherche-Midi  prison  while  Dreyfus  was  there, 
and  lost  his  post  for  proclaiming  a  belief  in 
his  innocence.  He  said,  first,  that  he  knew 
d'Attel  well,  and  was  sure  from  his  character 
that  if  he  had  heard  Dreyfus  confess  he 
would  have  said  so  in  his  private  conversa- 
tion, and  also  would  have  reported  the  fact 
officially,  whereas,  in  fact,  he  had  done 


THE  CONFESSION.  233 

neither.  Second,  said  Forzinetti,  Lebrun- 
Renault  had  told  him  that  Dreyfus  made  no 
confession,  and  that  he  had  said  as  much  to 
General  Mercier  at  the  time.  This  Lebrun- 
Renault  admitted  quite  cheerfully,  but  said 
he  denied  the  confession  under  orders  from 
his  superiors.  And  now  you  are  as  fit  as  I 
am  to  form  an  opinion  whether  Dreyfus 
confessed  or  not. 

It  is  just  another  of  the  hopeless  mazes 
of  discrepancy  and  contradiction  which  make 
you  despair  of  human  certitude  and  human 
veracity,  and  especially  of  getting  to  the 
bottom  of  the  Dreyfus  case.  And  there  have 
been  two  or  three  other  speeches  attributed 
to  Dreyfus  which  mystify  the  mystery  still 
further.  One  of  his  guards  deposed  before 
the  Cour  de  Cassation  that  he  heard  Dreyfus 
say — "  As  for  being  guilty,  I  am  guilty,  but  I 
am  not  the  only  one."  He  was  answered, 
"Then  why  do  you  not  give  the  names  you 
know  ? "  Whereto  Dreyfus  is  said  to  have 
replied,  "They  will  be  known  in  two  or 
three  years."  This  tale  was  discredited  at 
the  time  and  was  not  repeated  at  Rennes. 
In  prison  he  is  said  to  have  begged  that  he 


234  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

might  be  taken  away  for  a  year  under  police 
surveillance  while  the  affair  was  more 
thoroughly  investigated.  And  he  is  said  to 
have  said  before  several  witnesses,  "In  three 
years  I  shall  return  and  justice  will  be  done 
me."  Taking  all  these  things  together,  the 
haunting  doubt  floats  down  on  you  again  : 
what  is  there,  you  ask  yourself,  that  is  at  the 
bottom  of  all  this  but  will  not  come  up? 
Were  there  accomplices  in  the  War  Office, 
who  promised  the  scapegoat  that  he  should 
be  sacrificed  only  for  three  years — and  then 
broke  their  promise  for  their  own  greater 
safety,  knowing  that  Dreyfus  could  never 
accuse  them  without  doubly  damning  him- 
self? 

Or  else  there  are  two  other  suppositions. 
One  is  that  Lebrun- Renault  honestly  mistook 
something  he  really  heard.  His  reports  of 
the  words  have  not  been  precisely  consistent. 
But  before  the  Cour  de  Cassation  he  quoted 
Dreyfus  thus  :  "I  am  innocent.  In  three 
years  my  innocence  will  be  recognised. 
The  Minister  knows  it,  and  a  few  days  ago 
Major  Du  Paty  de  Clam  came  to  see  me 
in  my  cell  and  said  that  the  Minister  knew 


THE  CONFESSION.  235 

it.  The  Minister  knew  that  if  I  had  * 
delivered  documents  to  Germany  they  were 
of  no  importance,  and  that  it  was  to  get 
more  important  ones  in  exchange."  Dreyfus, 
interrogated  on  Devil's  Island  eleven  days 
later,  and  not  knowing  the  text  of  this 
evidence,  said  his  words  were  :  "  The 
Minister  knows  well  that  I  am  innocent. 
He  sent  Du  Paty  de  Clam  to  me  to  ask 
if  I  had  not  given  up  some  unimportant 
documents  to  get  others  in  exchange  for 
them.  I  answered  no."  If  you  cut  out 
of  Lebrun-Renault's  version  the  repeated 
words,  "the  Minister  knew  it,"  and  the 
full  stop,  you  get  Dreyfus's  version  almost 
word  for  word.  On  this  showing  it  does 
look  very  much  as  if  the  gendarme 
misunderstood  words  which  Dreyfus  really 
did  use. 

The  other  supposition  is  less  agreeable. 
The  rumour  of  a  confession  having  got  into 
the  Paris  papers,  always  hospitable  to  the 
wildest  and  most  unauthenticated  tale, 

*  M.  Cavaignac's  version,  copied  from  Lebrun-Renault's 
note-book,  and  Lebrun-Renault's  own  deposition  at 
Rennes,  say  instead  of  "  had  "  "  have." 


236  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

Generals  Mercier  and  Gonse  sought  out 
Lebrun-  Renault  next  day,  and  persuaded 
him  by  bribes  or  threats,  or  simply  by  cleverly 
insinuating  ideas  into  his  bovine  head,  to  say 
that  Dreyfus  confessed.  He  was  too  afraid 
of  his  new  story  to  repeat  it  to  the  President, 
but  having  written  it  down — this  after  he  had 
seen  the  generals,  mark  you — gained  con- 
fidence. Thereafter  he  talked  of  the  con- 
fession at  large,  sometimes  affirming  and 
sometimes  denying  it,  according  to  the  fancy 
of  the  moment.  But  whenever  there  was  a 
trial  concerned  with  the  Dreyfus  case,  the 
generals  always  brought  him  up  to  the  scratch 
to  affirm  again. 

You  will  say  that  it  is  too  cynical  to  hold 
this  second  view  when  it  is  possible  to  hold 
the  first.  Perhaps.  Yet  the  truth  is  that 
Mercier  and  Gonse  have  committed  and 
admitted  in  court  so  many  acts  of  scoundrelism 
that  I  believe  them  to  be — like  Habbakuk, 
whom  Gonse  resembles  personally — capable 
of  anything. 


237 


XVII. 

THE  DEFENCE. 

SUMMER  passed  into  autumn.  The  mornings 
nipped,  the  evenings  dripped,  and  the  leaves 
were  yellowing;  and  still  the  Dreyfus  case 
went  on.  Presently  Indian  summer  came  in 
on  autumn — the  sultriest,  steamingest  days 
we  had  known  even  in  sultry  Rennes  ;  still 
the  Dreyfus  case  went  on.  But  even  the 
Dreyfus  case  was  yellowing,  too.  A  few 
days  more  would  see  the  last  of  it,  and,  with 
a  tightening  of  the  heart,  men  began  to 
reckon  the  chances. 

Many  thousands  of  words  have  been  shed 
in  vain  if  you  do  not  understand  by  now  that 
the  trial  of  Dreyfus  was  not  in  the  very  least 
like  a  trial  in  England.  To  begin  with, 
there  were  the  two  trials  going  on  at  the  same 
time  in  alternate  chains,  like  M.  Bertillon's 
gabarit — the  Dreyfus  case  and  the  Esterhazy 
case.  If  one  was  proved  guilty — which,  in 
the  first  days  of  September,  neither  had 


238  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

been — the  other  was  automatically  acquitted. 
Then  there  were  the  tributaries  of  the  main 
stream — the  Picquart,  Henry,  Du  Paty  de 
Clam,  and  Mercier  cases.  But  for  the  last 
week — thanks  largely  to  the  efforts  of  M.  le 
President — we  had  left  these  almost  entirely 
aside.  We  were  gripping  ourselves  for  the 
finish  upon  the  Dreyfus- Esterhazy  case. 

For  another  point  of  dissimilarity  to 
England,  the  defence  had  been  going  on 
more  or  less  all  the  time  parallel  to  the 
prosecution.  We  had  Bertulus  and  Picquart 
for,  sandwiched  between  Roget  and  Cuignet 
against.  Freystaetter  cropped  up  in  the 
middle  of  the  handwriting  experts,  and  the 
experts  themselves  came  in  alternate  layers 
of  for  and  against. 

The  experts,  indeed,  were  the  point  of 
transition  from  attack  to  defence.  Up  to 
them  the  witnesses  had  mostly  accused ; 
after  them  began  the  defence  proper.  It 
also  was  mixed  up  with  stray  witnesses  for 
the  prosecution,  who  had  somehow  got 
shuffled  into  the  wrong  pack.  But  the  five 
main  divisions  of  the  prosecution — the  secret 
doca.iieiits,  the  presumptions  supplied  by  the 


THE  DEFENCE.  239 

bordereau,  the  personal  demeanour  of  Drey- 
fus on  the  General  Staff,  the  handwriting  of 
the  bordereau,  and  the  alleged  confession- 
had  been  all  finally  presented  ;  and  by 
September  6th  we  were  at  the  end  of  the 
testimony  that  had  been  presented  to  rebut 
them. 

This  period  of  the  defence  was  a  duel 
between  two  men — Roget  and  Labori. 
Mercier  and  Gonse  had  been  badly  dis- 
credited, Picquart  was  almost  silent  on  the 
other  side  ;  Roget  and  Labori  fought  out  the 
case  to  the  finish.  Roget  was  in  truth  playing 
advocate  for  the  prosecution  just  as  the  other 
was  for  the  defence.  He  had  not  been  con- 
cerned even  indirectly  with  any  of  the  half- 
dozen  branches  of  the  affair  :  nominally  a 
witness,  he  was  there  simply  and  solely  to 
plead  the  cause  of  the  generals.  It  was 
impossible  not  to  admire  the  spirit,  resolve 
and  cleverness  with  which  he  fought  the  case. 
He  was  quite  as  good  as  a  good  lawyer.  At 
every  moment  when  the  defence  seemed  to  be 
scoring,  his  grey-white  head  rose  out  of  the 
witnesses'  seats  with,  "  I  ask  to  be  heard." 
Every  witness  that  seemed  likely  to  weigh  he 


240  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

countervailed  with  one  of  his  own.  Labori 
cross-examined  him ;  but  he  had  no  vul- 
nerable point  to  assist  attack,  and  Labori  did 
little  with  him.  He  was  never  disconcerted ; 
for  every  occasion  he  had  a  denial  or  a 
distinction,  a  repartee  or  a  quibble,  a  gibe  or 
a  lie. 

And  yet  to  observers  hitherto  unpre- 
judiced the  only  effect  of  Roget  was  to 
inspire  a  fierce  partisanship  for  Dreyfus. 
The  French  admired  Roget — his  elastic  if 
fleshy  form,  his  ready  smile  and  jest  for  the 
reporters,  his  elaborately  graceful  attitude  on 
the  platform,  his  turn  to  the  audience  after 
each  hit,  the  bully's  face  thrust  right  into  his 
opponent's  with  a  sneer  or  an  insult.  To 
the  stolider  Anglo-Saxon  all  this  was  mere 
mummery  ;  what  they  saw  and  detested  was 
that  Roget  was  obviously  on  the  make.  He 
was  doing  his  utmost  to  destroy  Dreyfus,  not 
to  save  himself  like  the  others,  but  to  make 
himself.  He,  who  stood  only  to  win,  was  a 
bitterer  foe  to  the  broken  prisoner  than  the 
men  who  stood  to  lose  their  all.  From 
Dreyfus's  second  living  grave  he  hoped  to 
rise  Governor  of  Paris,  Minister  of  War, 


THE  DEFENCE.  241 

perhaps  President,  perhaps — who  knows  ?— 
higher  yet.  Such  would  have  been  a  dis- 
honourable ladder  to  fortune  for  anybody. 
For  a  soldier,  of  all  men,  to  elect  to  make 
his  career  out  of  a  medley  of  politics,  law, 
diplomacy,  intrigue  and  crime  like  the 
Dreyfus  case,  was  almost  too  despicable  to  be 
worth  despising. 

But  Roget,  however  you  might  hate  him, 
was  putting  in  good  work  for  his  side ; 
Dreyfusards  were  not  quite  so  sure  of 
Labori.  They  thought  he  irritated  the  Court 
unnecessarily  ;  also  that  he  would  have  done 
better  to  stick  to  the  points;  that  bore  directly 
on  Dreyfus,  as  Demange  did,  instead  of 
fighting  the  complex  cases  that  have  risen 
out  of  them.  Labori  was  acting  for  Picquart 
quite  as  much  as  for  Dreyfus  ;  it  was  said 
—I  know  not  whether  truly  or  not— that  he 
was  actually  briefed  by  Picquart,  in  which 
case  it  was  of  course  his  duty  to  plead  for  the 
man  who  paid  him.  You  remember  that 
Labori  had  been  especially  concerned  with 
the  later  developments  of  the  case  ;  he  had 
never  so  much  as  set  eyes  on  Dreyfus  till  he 
saw  him  in  the  prison  of  Rennes.  It  must 

R 


242   THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

be  said  too  that  the  line  between  Dreyfus 
and  Picquart  was  not  easy  to  draw.  The 
judges  were  evidently  taking  no  interest  at 
all  in  Picquart's  case,  and  not  very  much  in 
Esterhazy's  :  Dreyfus  was  the  man  they  had 
to  try,  and  they  pined  to  confine  the  case  to 
him.  But  whenever  the  President  objected 
to  a  question  of  Labori's,  it  was  comparatively 
easy  for  the  lawyer  to  show  that  the  charges 
against  Picquart  were  used  to  invalidate  his 
evidence  against  Esterhazy,  which  in  turn 
was  legitimately  used  on  behalf  of  Dreyfus. 
It  was  difficult  to  draw  the  line,  and  Labori 
was  able  in  the  last  days  of  the  evidence  to 
deal  some  resounding  thwacks  to  Picquart's 
enemies.  General  Gonse  he  reduced  to 
pulp.  That  decrepit  model  of  Napoleon  III. 
trembled  visibly  every  time  he  was  called  up 
to  the  bar  ;  his  voice  deserted  him  ;  he  owned 
to  dishonesty  after  dishonesty  committed  to 
keep  Dreyfus  in  prison  and  Esterhazy  free ; 
in  the  end  his  very  protestations  of  good 
faith  became  only  a  matter  of  form.  This 
was  effective  politically,  but  legally  it  was 
futile,  since  Gonse  had  nothing  to  do  with 
the  Dreyfus  case  proper.  But  from  General 


THE  DEFENCE.  243 

Zurlinden,  on  September  6th,  Labori  won  a 
most  important  admission  :  no  less  than  that 
the  General  did  not  believe  that  Picquart 
forged  the  petit  bleii — the  more  significant  in 
that  it  was  Zurlinden  who  arrested  him  on 
that  charge. 

The  same  day — the  6th — General  Billot, 
emerging  from  slumber  and  hearing  his 
name  mentioned,  trotted  up  on  to  the  plat- 
form and  delivered  a  short  speech  in  defence 
of  his  action  while  Minister  of  War.  He 
seemed,  as  always,  thoroughly  sincere,  and 
moved  to  alternate  rage  and  tears.  Touch- 
ing in  the  course  of  his  remarks  on  the 
Dreyfus  case,  he  incidentally  threw  out  a 
suggestion  that  Dreyfus  and  Esterhazy 
might  be  accomplices  in  treason.  He  meant 
nothing  by  it — the  worthy,  kindly  old  man 
never  means  anything  by  anything — but  in 
a  second  the  whole  court  was  in  a  tumult. 
Labori  sprang  up  baying.  Dreyfus  sprang 
up  livid,  his  snarl  swelling  to  a  howl.  "  I 
protest  against  this  infamous  assertion,"  he 
cried.  "  Maitre  Labori,  be  moderate,"  said 
the  President.  "  I  am  moderate,"  roared 
Labori.  "  Your  voice  is  not."  "  I  am 

R  2 


244  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

not  master  of  my  voice."  "  Everybody  is 
master  of  his  own  person."  Retort  struck 
fire  on  retort.  The  President's  "  sit  down  " 
came  like  rifle-cracks  ;  Labori's  "  I  will  ;  but 
first  I  say—  '  like  artillery.  The  Presi- 
dent half  rose  and  threatened  with  his  white- 
gloved  hand.  Labori  stood  up  and  flung  his 
arms  wide  ;  the  eyes  under  his  shaggy  brows 
were  lightning,  and  out  of  his  deep  chest 
crashed  thunder.  And  then  Labori  said 
what  he  wanted  to  say.  The  storm  sank 
more  suddenly  than  it  had  burst ;  only  the 
cheers  and  groans  of  its  echoes  were  left 
reverberating  among  the  audience. 

Such  contests — this  was  only  a  little 
louder  than  what  happened  every  day- 
filled  the  enemies  of  Dreyfus  with  indigna- 
tion and  his  friends  with  nervousness.  Of 
these,  some  said  Labori  was  over-impetuous, 
some  that  the  President  was  unfair.  I 
thought  both  were  wrong.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  the  questions  of  Labori  which  Jouaust 
refused  to  put  were  generally  such  as  did 
not  need  putting — rhetorical  points  which,  as 
Labori  himself  said  often  enough,  had  done 
their  work  as  soon  as  he  uttered  them.  It 


THE  DEFENCE.  245 

was  absurd  to  expect  the  Colonel  to  ask  a 
General  how  he  reconciled  it  with  his  con- 
science to  do  this  or  that.  The  Colonel 
would  have  been  abused  for  life  for  sitting 
by  and  allowing  the  army  to  be  insulted  ; 
and  it  would  have  done  Labori  no  good,  for 
a  French  general  can  reconcile  it  with  his 
conscience  to  do  anything.  After  all,  though 
the  scenes  looked  terrible,  I  do  not  think 
either  President  or  advocate  took  them  to 
heart.  It  looked  most  grave  ;  either  Jouaust, 
you  would  say,  must  have  been  cashiered  or 
Labori  disbarred.  In  reality  it  was  all  in 
the  day's  work  to  both  of  them. 

But  we  must  get  back  to  the  evidence — and 
now  for  the  balance.  Was  it  guilty  or 
not  guilty  ?  The  five  parts  of  the  case  had 
been  presented  by  the  defence  in  the  reverse 
order  of  their  presentation  by  the  attack. 
The  confession  and  the  experts  came  in  the 
middle.  Of  Captain  Lebrun- Renault  and 
his  supporters  and  their  assertions  and  their 
admissions  you  have  heard  enough  already. 
On  the  whole,  that  part  of  the  case  may  be 
held  to  have  cancelled  itself  out ;  certainly 
Lebrun- Renault  was  not  unshaken  enough  nor 


246  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

even  sure  enough  of  himself  to  send  Dreyfus 
back  to  Devil's  Island.  The  experts  can- 
celled themselves  out  likewise.  M.  Bertillon 

' 
made  a  great  impression  :  his  system  is  far 

too  neat  and  superficially  logical  not  to 
impress  Frenchmen.  But  the  counter-Ber- 
tillons — Paraf  Javal  and  Bernard,  who  denied 
his  theories  and  disputed  his  measurements 
—had  their  effect  too.  And  of  the  hand- 
writing experts  proper — not  that  they  matter 
much — the  defence  seemed  to  have  the  best 
authenticated.  All  these  experts,  except  the 
obviously  imbecile  or  utterly  inaudible,  were 
listened  to  with  such  attention  by  the  judges 
that  I  think  they  also  cannot  but  have  can- 
celled each  other  out  and  left  a  net  result 
of  nothing. 

The  third  branch  of  the  accusation  rested 
on  the  personal  demeanour  of  Dreyfus. 
Almost  every  officer  who  was  on  the  General 
Staff  with  him  agreed  that  he  was  obsequious 
to  his  superiors,  bumptious  to  his  equals, 
greedy  of  information  that  might  turn  to  his 
personal  advantage,  but  inclined  to  shirk 
labours  for  whose  results  he  could  sponge  on 
others  without  trouble  to  himself.  The 


THE  DEFENCE.  247 

defence  had  not  tried  to  dispute  this  char- 
acter ,  probably  it  is  a  true  one  ;  but  with  an 
intelligent  and  impartial  Court  it  does  not 
spell  high  treason. 

The  only  relevant  part  of  this  branch  of 
the  evidence  was  that  which  charged  Dreyfus 
with  perpetually  sneaking  about  the  office  in 
the  wrong  rooms  and  the  wrong  hours  with 
a  view  to  picking  up  secrets  that  did  not 
concern  him.  To  meet  this,  the  defence 
produced,  on  September  ist,  an  officer  of 
artillery  named  Major  Ducros.  He  was 
engaged  in  the  invention  of  a  gun  between 
1891  and  1894,  and  was  acquainted  with 
another  new  and  especially  confidential  gun, 
which  was  adopted  by  the  French  army. 
He  knew  Dreyfus,  and  appears  to  have  been 
the  only  man  who  liked  him.  Several  times 
he  asked  him  to  breakfast  with  a  view  to 
telling  him  all  he  knew.  For  a  man  who 
was  selling  artillery  secrets  this  information 
would  have  been  priceless  ;  yet  Dreyfus 
never  came  to  breakfast,  and  never  accepted 
the  offers  of  information  about  the  guns. 

The  next  point  was  to  get  back  to  the 
bordereau.  The  endeavour  of  the  early 


248  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

witnesses  for  the  prosecution  -  Mercier, 
Cavaignac,  Roget — had  been  to  show  that 
Dreyfus  alone  was  in  a  position  to  betray 
the  secrets  indicated  in  it ;  that  Esterhazy 
certainly  was  not.  Summarily,  you  may 
say  that  the  tendency  of  the  generals  was 
to  magnify  the  importance  of  the  informa- 
tion betrayed,  that  of  Picquart  and  Labori 
to  water  it  down  to  what  might  be  picked  up 
by  a  major  of  infantry  at  a  school  of  field- 
firing.  Another  point  was  to  show  that  the 
language  of  the  bordereau  was  technically 
incorrect,  and  therefore  more  applicable  to 
Esterhazy  than  to  Dreyfus.  Accordingly 
for  two  days  we  fought  our  way  through 
a  jungle  of  artillery  experts.  The  prosecu- 
tion had  a  general  of  the  name  of  Deloye 
— a  gentleman  with  a  long  white  beard 
that  made  him  out  a  cross  between  Michael 
Angelo's  Moses  and  a  he-goat — who  took 
two  hours  of  closed  doors  to  expound  to 
the  Council  the  innermost  secrets  of  the 
hydro-pneumatic  brake  of  the  1 20-millimetre 
short  field-gun.  On  the  other  side  was  a 
major  of  the  name  of  Hartmann — a  big, 
chubby-faced  man  with  almost  the  finest 


THE  DEFENCE.  249 

moustache  of  the  trial — who  deposed  at 
prodigious  length,  sometimes  with  open 
doors,  sometimes  with  closed,  on  hydro-pneu- 
matic brakes.  The  major,  as  does  some- 
times happen,  appeared  to  know  the 
subject  far  better  than  his  general.  The 
conclusion  he  came  to  was  that  if  the  traitor 
of  the  bordereau  gave  away  detailed  informa- 
tion, he  must  have  been  one  of  a  very  small 
number  of  officers  employed  either  in  the 
foundries  or  the  office  of  the  Director- 
General  of  Artillery ;  of  which  officers 
Dreyfus  was  not  one.  If  the  information 
was  general,  it  was  accessible  to  any  officer 
of  any  arm  who  attended  the  manoeuvres 
of  1 894  at  Chalons  even  for  one  day ;  of 
which  officers  Esterhazy  was  one. 

For  all  that,  the  case  against  Esterhazy 
could  hardly  be  called  flourishing.  Several 
journalists— among  them  an  Englishman, 
Mr.  Strong — proved  that  Esterhazy  had 
made  confessions,  for  newspaper  purposes, 
of  having  written  the  bordereau.  But  in 
every  case  he  had  carefully  added  that  he 
did  it  at  the  order  of  Colonel  Sandherr,  and 
that  Dreyfus  really  did  betray  the  documents 


250  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

mentioned  in  it.  This  theory  was  so  equally 
embarrassing  to  attack  and  defence  that 
each  believed  as  much  of  it  as  suited  them, 
and  the  judges,  I  fancy,  none  of  it.  Then 
there  was  a  Jewish  lieutenant  of  artillery- 
one  Bernheim — who  swore  that  Esterhazy, 
whom  he  hardly  knew,  had  borrowed  a  range- 
finder  from  him  and,  though  often  asked  for 
it,  had  never  returned  it.  More  to  the 
point  was  a  fact  which  arose  on  the  6th,  from 
an  apparently  rambling  cross-examination 
by  Labori  about  the  petit  bleu :  that  Count 
Miinster  had  written  to  M.  Delcasse  in 
April  this  year,  stating  that  Schwarzkoppen 
avowed  he  had  sent  a  number  of  express 
letter-cards  to  Esterhazy,  and  the  one  inter- 
cepted might  very  probably  be  by  him. 
That  was  as  near  proof  of  Esterhazy's 
treason  as  we  could  expect  to  get  without 
Schwarzkoppen  himself  at  the  bar. 

On  the  whole,  you  might  say  that  attack 
and  defence — leaving  aside  the  secret  dossier^ 
which  could  not  be  very  conclusive  either 
way,  or  we  should  have  heard  more  of  it  by 
now — were  pretty  evenly  balanced.  Both 
sides  had  tried  to  make  out  much  the 


THE  DEFENCE.  251 

same  case  on  very  similar  evidence  ;  and 
—if  we  rule  out  diplomatic  evidence  on 
the  admitted  French  principle  that  all 
diplomatists  always  lie  —  neither  Dreyfus 
nor  Esterhazy  had  so  far  been  proved 
guilty.  An  even  balance  ought  to  mean 
acquittal — only  with  seven  French  officers, 
who  had  probably  made,  and  rightly  made, 
Dreyfus's  guilt  an  article  of  faith  for  five 
years,  for  whom  Dreyfus's  guilt  stood 
till  almost  yesterday  as  a  sign  of  trust  in 
their  legitimate  chiefs,  who  had  perhaps  lost 
friends  for  the  guilt  of  Dreyfus,  whose  moral 
and  intellectual  self-respect  might  almost 
depend  on  the  guilt  of  Dreyfus — what 
of  them  ?  It  was  asking  something  of 
them  to  cast  out  the  passions  of  years 
at  the  bidding  of  an  academic  benefit  of 
the  doubt. 

The  Dreyfusards  had  hoped  —  against 
reason,  it  seems  to  me — for  some  providential 
intervention  that  would  make  the  prisoner's 
innocence  clear  beyond  doubt  or  cavil.  It 
had  not  come. 

And  then,  at  the  very  end  of  Saturday's 
evidence,  came  up  a  completely  average 


252  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

young  Frenchman — open  face,  dark  mous- 
tache, voluminous  morning  coat  and  light 
trousers — who  began  to  lisp  rapidly  evidence 
about  the  bordereau  and  the  manoeuvres. 
He  gave  the  name  of  Captain  de  Fond- 
Lamothe  :  nobody  had  ever  heard  it  before  ; 
he  had  never  appeared  in  any  of  the  previous 
Dreyfus  cases  ;  nobody  knew  who  he  was. 
He  explained  that  he  was  now  an  engineer, 
but  that  he  had  been  with  Dreyfus  through 
the  two  years'  course  on  the  General  Staff. 
"I  love  the  army,"  he  said,  "and  I  have  a 
brother  in  garrison  here  at  Rennes.  But  it 
is  my  duty  to  say  that  the  bordereau  cannot 
be  by  any  General  Staff  officer  of  Dreyfus's 
year.  If  it  was  written  in  April,  he  could 
not  have  had  the  firing-manual.  If  it  was 
written  in  August,  he  could  not  have  con- 
cluded, '  I  am  just  going  to  the  manoeuvres.' 
For  every  one  of  us  knew  in  May  that  we 
were  not  going  to  the  manoeuvres.  Here  is 
a  circular  distributed  to  us  on  May  i  ;th 
that  proves  it.  I  beg  that  it  be  read."  It 
was  read.  Dreyfusards  glowed ;  Anti- 
Dreyfusards  went  pale. 

"And  that,"  said  M.   de  Fond-Lamothe, 


THE  DEFENCE.  253 

lisping   with    terrific    energy,    "  knocks    the 
bottom  out  of  the  accusation." 

And  it  did.  Five  generals  hurried  up  to 
confute  him,  but  not  even  Roget  could 
hector  him  out  of  his  syllogism.  There  was 
the  circular ;  could  anybody  dispute  it  ? 
Dreyfus  had  the  circular ;  therefore  he  knew 
he  was  not  going  to  the  manoeuvres  ; 
therefore  he  did  not  write  the  bordereau, 

True,  the  undefeated  Roget,  after  sleeping 
three  nights  on  it,  did  come  up  with  an 
answer.  It  was  quite  true,  he  said,  that 
the  circular  made  it  certain  that  officers  in 
Dreyfus's  position  could  not  go  to  the 
manoeuvres,  as  hitherto,  with  a  regiment ; 
but  they  might  go  on  a  staff.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  he  admitted,  none  did  go,  but  that 
was  because  the  General  Staff  office  in  Paris 
happened  to  be  busy  at  the  moment.  Next 
day  he  produced  a  Major  Hirschauer,  who 
had  been  on  the  General  Staff  at  the  time- 
there  seemed  to  be  an  inexhaustible  number 
of  such  ready  to  swear  to  anything — who 
swore  that  Dreyfus  was  very  anxious  to  go 
to  the  manoeuvres.  Dreyfus  retorted  that 
he  certainly  would  have  liked  to  go,  but 


254   THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

never  asked  to  ;  and  Picquart,  his  chief  at 
the  time,  bore  him  out.  Further,  Dreyfus 
added  very  cogently,  the  writer  of  the 
bordereau  says,  "  I  am  just  starting,"  not  "  I 
may  soon  start,"  or  "  I  hope  to  start."  The 
writer  was  certain  of  it,  whereas  he  himself 
admittedly  was  not  and  could  not  be. 

If  he  had  only  been  as  ready  and  as  candid 
always,  his  chances  would  have  looked  very 
bright  at  this  moment  ;  but  he  was  not 
always. 

There  was  no  getting  over  it :  Dreyfus  did 
not  give  the  effect  of  a  frank  man.  One 
day  he  made  a  particularly  poor  impression. 
The  charge  against  him — do  not  laugh  ;  it 
was  serious  for  him — was  a  characteristically 
shaky  one  of  M.  Quesnay  de  Beaurepaire's, 
that  he  had  followed  German  manoeuvres 
about  Miihlhausen.  He  had  subsequently 
made  this  a  subject  for  swagger,  as  was 
alleged,  to  one  of  his  comrades.  If  he  had 
said,  "  Yes,  I  was  riding  out  near  Miihl- 
hausen and  saw  German  regiments  manoeuvr- 
ing. I  stopped  to  look  at  them.  Would  not 
any  of  you,  gentlemen,  have  done  the  same  ?  " 
it  would  have  been  nothing  at  all.  Instead 


THE  DEFENCE.  255 

of  that  he  paused,  hesitated,  stammered, 
asked  to  have  a  question  repeated  that  was 
audible  all  down  the  hall.  First  he  denied  ; 
then  he  qualified.  First  he  said  he  had 
been  present  at  no  manoeuvres  ;  then  that 
he  may  possibly  have  seen  German  regiments 
manoeuvring  ;  but  that  this  was  not,  properly 
speaking,  manoeuvres.  He  felt  that  he  was 
surrounded  by  people  who  would  make  the 
most  of  anything  he  admitted  ;  and  so  he 
did  not  admit  anything.  He  was  afraid  to 
tell  the  simple,  innocent  truth. 


256   THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 


XVIII. 

DEMANGE 

GREAT  events  from  little  causes  spring.  The 
little  cause  was  a  young  gentleman  giving 
the  name  of  Cernuschi.  He  described  him- 
self as  an  ex-officer  of  Austrian  cavalry  and 
a  descendant  of  a  Servian  royal  family  ;  but 
he  looked  more  like  a  Viennese  waiter.  He 
approached  the  judges  with  a  bob  like  the 
bow  of  a  jointed  doll,  and  indicated  that,  not 
speaking  French  very  well,  he  had,  with  the 
assistance  of  his  wife,  written  on  a  piece 
of  paper  what  he  knew  of  the  treason  of 
Dreyfus.  His  knowledge  appeared  to  be 
comprehensive  but  vague.  He  knew  an 
official  in  a  foreign  embassy  in  France.  This 
gentleman  had  warned  him  as  a  political 
refugee — such  was  Cernuschi's  present  pro- 
fession— that  Dreyfus  might  betray  him  to  a 
foreign  Power.  This  conformed  with  infor- 
mation he  had  received  from  a  foreign  officer, 
once  near  the  'person  of  his  sovereign,  but 


DEMANGE.  257 

now  engaged  as  a  spy.  He  had  also  seen 
at  this  officer's  hotel  numerous  plans  and 
other  confidential  French  military  papers. 
The  spy  had  freely  shown  him  these,  with 
the  remark,  "Why  have  Jews  unless  you 
use  them  ? "  He  begged  to  be  allowed  to 
name  no  names. 

Such  was  the  simple  story  of  Cernuschi. 
He  might  have  added  that  he  had  been  put 
under  restraint  and  dismissed  the  Austrian 
service  for  insanity,  had  been  put  under 
restraint  at  Zurich  fcr  the  same  reason,  had 
abandoned  his  twin  children  at  Caen,  had 
swindled  numerous  people  in  Alengon,  was  in 
debt  everywhere,  and  had  been  sold  up— 
facts  which  came  pouring  into  court  in 
streams,  and  which  would  have  materially 
increased  the  interest  of  his  deposition. 
Three  days  afterwards  he  was  ill  and  unable 
to  attend  for  public  examination ;  altogether 
he  was  not  a  happy  effort  of  M.  de 
Beaurepaire's. 

But  the  consequences  of  M.  Cernuschi 
seemed  for  the  moment  overwhelming. 
Labori  was  crouching  over  his  desk  ready  for 
a  spring.  "  As  the  other  side,"  said  he,  "  has 

s 


258  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

not  hesitated  to  call  in  foreign  testimony, 
from  which  we  have  always  abstained,  I  shall 
ask  the  Court  to  find  out  by  diplomatic 
channels  whether  the  documents  of  the 
bordereau  were  given  up,  and  to  whom." 
He  was  not  quite  accurate,  for  Mr.  Strong 
had  already  given  evidence  tending  to 
Dreyfus's  innocence,  and  the  objection  was 
rather  to  foreign  official  testimony  than  to 
foreign  testimony  as  such.  None  the  less, 
that  afternoon  Labori  telegraphed  to  the 
German  Emperor  and  the  King  of  Italy, 
begging  them  to  allow  Schwarzkoppen  and 
Panizzardi  to  come  and  give  evidence  at 
Rennes. 

In  an  hour  the  whole  case  was  once  more 
turned  topsy-turvy.  Schwarzkoppen  was 
the  one  man  who  not  only  knew  the  truth, 
but  whom  everybody  knew  to  know  it. 
With  Schwarzkoppen  at  the  bar  the  trial 
would  begin  all  over  again  from  a  fresh 
point.  It  was  the  Dreyfus  case  all  over, 
that  just  when  it  was  in  sight  of  its  end, 
after  twenty-seven  days  of  evidence,  a 
witness  should  be  invoked  who  would  make 
every  word  yet  spoken  not  only  stale,  which 


DEMANGE.  259 

it  notoriously  was  already,  but  also  irrelevant. 
For  a  couple  of  days  the  Dreyfus  affair  was 
in  the  melting-pot.     Nobody  knew  when  it 
would  end  now,  still  less  how.     If  Schwarz- 
koppen  did  not  come,  Labori's  appeal  might 
look  uglily  like  the  drowning  man  clutching 
at  a  straw.     If  he  came  he  would  of  course 
declare   positively   for    Dreyfus   as   he  had 
already  done  diplomatically  ;  but  would  he 
be  believed  ?      For  this  would  be  evidence 
"  from  those,"  as  some  of  the  officers  were 
always    saying,    "  whose    interest    it    is    to 
deceive   us."     What   precisely   was   the    in- 
terest of  von    Miinster    and   von    Schwarz- 
koppen  in  getting   Dreyfus  off,  they  never 
explained.      "It  is   setting   the   receiver  of 
stolen    goods    to     catch     the    thief,"     they 
aphorized  ;  but  they  forgot  to  mention  that 
the  receiver  had  retired  from  business,  and 
that  neither  of  the    two   suspected    thieves 
could   ever  steal  again.     Dreyfus  acquitted 
could   never   be   of    any   use   to    Germany. 
But     the     accusers  --  well     knowing     that 
official      foreign      testimony      alone      could 
irrefutably     demonstrate    the    innocence    of 
Dreyfus — lost  no  chance  of  insisting  that  all 

s  2 


260  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

foreign  testimony  was,  as  such,  suspect,  mis 
leading,  worse  than  useless. 

But  we  were  spared  that  difficulty,  and 
spared  with  it  the  prolongation  of  the  weary 
trial.  Maitre  Labori  received  unofficial  news 
on  the  7th  that  neither  of  the  ex-attach£s 
could  come  to  Rennes,  but  that  both  would 
willingly  answer  any  questions  put  to  them 
by  a  rogatory  commission.  Labori  drew  up 
his  questions :  the  last  and  crucial  one  was, 
"  Have  you  ever  had  any  direct  or  indirect 
relations  with  Captain  Dreyfus  ?  "  The  Com- 
missary of  the  Government  had  no  objection 
to  their  being  asked.  But  the  Court  found 
it  had  no  competence  to  order  such  a  com- 
mission ;  the  summoning  of  testimony 
depended  solely  on  the  discretionary  power 
of  the  President.  And  Colonel  Jouaust 
firmly  declined  to  summon  that  of  Schwarz- 
koppen. 

Here  was  another  turn  of  the  kaleidoscope. 
The  case  which  yesterday  had  seemed 
inclined  to  run  on  till  the  Day  of  Judg- 
ment was  suddenly  all  over.  The  meaning 
of  that  was  plain  enough.  The  judges  had 
made  up  their  minds.  True  the  discretion 


DEMANGE.  261 

was  nominally  the  President's  alone  ;  but  even 
if  two   or    three   of    the  judges    had   been 
strongly  in  favour  of  getting  Schwarzkoppen's 
evidence,  Jouaust  could  hardly  have  refused. 
Conviction  seemed  the  only  ground  of  the 
Council's  action  :  men  of  their  broad  intelli- 
gence— -I  am  saying  exactly  what  most  of  us 
thought  at  the  time— could  hardly  have  been 
taken  in  by  the  simile  about  the  receiver  and 
the  thief.     Dreyfus  was  either  lost  or  saved— 
only  which  ?    For  my  part — I  admit  it,  though 
you  know  how  wrong  I  was — I   thought  it 
looked    uncommonly   like    salvation.       The 
judges  had  seen  in  Colonel  Maurel  the  piti- 
ful consequences  of  a  hasty  and  unconscien- 
tious  judgment  in  such  a  case  :   would   they 
risk  the  same  consequences  for  themselves  ? 
Moral  courage  is  not  the  most  plenteous  of 
French  virtues  :  if  these  seven  were  going  to 
take  the  consequences  of  ignoring  such  vital 
testimony  on  the  prisoner's  side,  they  must 
either  have  resolved  to  acquit  him  anyhow 
or  else  be  the  boldest  and  the  most  shameless 
men  in  France. 

One  way  or  another  it  was  done,  and  the 
case  swooped  to  its  end.     Before  we  knew, 


262  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

the  last  scraps  of  evidence  had  been  swept  up 
and  the  Commissary  of  the  Government  had 
begun  his  speech.  As  he  rose,  the  officers 
in  the  witnesses'  seats  rose  too.  The 
Minister  of  War  had  ordered  them  to  leave 
Rennes  as  soon  as  the  speeches  began. 
Generals  first,  colonels,  majors,  captains, 
subalterns,  the  crimson  and  gold  lace 
streamed  out  of  the  hall.  There  remained 
nothing  military  but  the  judges  and  their 
substitutes  on  the  dais,  and  the  peasant  boys 
on  guard  at  the  bottom  of  the  hall.  The 
army  as  politics  and  faction  was  gone ;  the 
place  was  left  clear  to  the  army  as  justice 
and  order. 

Then  spoke  up  the  Commissary  of  the 
Government.  Mr.  Commissary  Carriere 
had  up  to  now  been  nothing  in  the  trial 
but  an  element  of  humour.  He  is  a  retired 
Major  of  the  age,  I  think,  of  sixty-six,  and 
he  is  a  law-student  of  the  University  of 
Rennes.  That  sums  him  up  fairly  well— 
the  conscience  that  impels  him  to  fit  himself 
for  the  official  position  he  has  retired  into, 
the  mediocre  head  that  makes  it  necessary. 
This  same  head  of  his  was  the  most  ex- 


DEMANGE.  263 

traordinary   thing   in  court ;    the  skull    was 
almost   exactly  of  the   shape  of  a   horse's. 
An  old,  worn,  slightly  vicious,  very  willing 
horse    he    looked   with    his    flat    forehead, 
beaky    nose,    sparse    grey    hair,    big    grey 
moustache,    and    peering    eyes    hidden    by 
glasses.      He   had    taken    hardly   any   part 
in    the    trial  —  had   never    asked    a    single 
question,  I   think,  of  a  single  witness.     He 
had  displayed  a  laudable  desire  to  facilitate 
any    investigation    that    was    suggested,     a 
pronounced     distrust      of     Labori     and     a 
good  deal   of  unconscious   humour.     When 
Labori     had     suggested     an     adjournment 
to  get   Schwarzkoppen's  evidence,   he   said, 
"  I  freely  consent  if  it  will  not  take  too  long. 
But  if  it  means  that  we  are  to  begin  these 
debates  all  over  again,  then  I  answer   No, 
no,  no  !  "     Another  day  he  said  testily,  "  I 
think  it  very  hard  that  while  the  defence  is 
allowed  to  speak  whenever  it  likes,   I,   the 
Commissary  of  the  Government,  am  refused 
a  hearing."     "  Because  you   always  ask   to 
speak   when   everybody   else    is   speaking," 
replied    Jouaust   swiftly,   and  added   to    the 
resultant  laughter  a  discreet  smile  of  his  own. 


264  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

They  had  sat  on  court-martials  together 
before  ;  and  I  am  afraid  that  the  one  man  to 
whom  the  Court  paid  no  attention  at  all  was 
Major  Carriere.  And  it  surely  was  the 
unkindest  stroke  of  fate  that  flicked  this 
honest,  dull,  rather  inflated,  very  conscien- 
tious gentleman  right  into  the  very  middle  of 
the  Dreyfus  case. 

He  is  endowed  with  a  thin  voice,  slightly 
cracked  ;  he  speaks  slowly,  but  with  pro- 
digious emphasis,  and  hurls  his  emphasis 
impartially  on  every  word,  as  if  all  that 
comes  out  of  his  mouth  is  to  be  considered 
equally  precious.  Therewith  he  gesticulates 
most  elaborately  ;  if  the  word  does  not  give 
time  for  the  gesture  he  leaves  off  speaking 
till  it  is  successfully  finished.  He  looks  as  if 
he  were  performing,  very  methodically,  very 
conscientiously,  a  new  sort  of  sword  exercise, 
with  which  his  words  are  only  used  to  mark 
time ;  he  finishes  almost  every  sentence 
straight  from  the  shoulder  with  a  tremendous 
lunge  in  tierce. 

You  would  have  said  from  his  record  that 
his  speech  would  be  ludicrously  feeble  ;  but 
it  was  not  So  far  as  you  can  sum  up  the 


DEMANGE.  265 

evidence  of  over  a  hundred  and  thirty  hours 
in  an  hour  and  a  half,  Commissary  Carriere 
did  it  fairly  well.  When  he  felt  that  he  did 
not  know  any  part  of  the  subject,  or  that  his 
case  was  not  very  good,  he  passed  it  by 
When  he  felt  the  ground  firm  under  him  he 
stamped  on  it.  He  avoided,  for  example,  the 
hydraulic  brake  of  the  bordereau,  where  the 
subject  was  highly  technical  and  the  defence 
strong,  and  made  his  point  on  covering 
troops,  which  the  defence  had  comparatively 
neglected.  On  the  other  hand,  he  saw  that 
it  would  be  fatal  to  glide  over  the  crucial 
phrase  about  the  manoeuvres,  and  insisted 
strenuously  that  Dreyfus  and  his  comrades 
only  learned  verbally  on  August  28th,  1894, 
that  they  would  not  go.  As  for  the  writing, 
he  made  ingenious  use  of  the  numerous 
rough  drafts  that  Dreyfus  made  of  his 
letters  from  Devil's  Island  to  argue  he  was 
trying  to  alter  his  handwriting  —  why  ? 
Thence  he  passed  summarily — still  putting 
his  whole  soul  into  every  syllable — over  the 
secret  papers,  on  which  it  cannot  be  said 
that  he  shed  much  light.  When  he  came  to 
Esterhazy,  he  was  again  on  surer  ground. 


266  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

He  threw  out  once  more  the  suggestion  that 
he  may  have  been  the  intermediary  between 
Dreyfus  and  Schwarzkoppen,  but  flung  every 
force  of  his  being  against  the  idea  that  he 
could  be  held  responsible  for  the  treason 
disclosed  by  the  secret  papers.  Thus  Major 
Carriere  wrestled  to  the  end  of  his  speech. 
It  was  a  good  end — for  him — and  once  more 
you  saw  that  no  Frenchman  can  escape  being 
an  orator.  "  I  began  my  study  of  the  case 
with  Colonel  Picquart's  essays  on  it  in  the 
hope — yes,  the  hope — of  proving  Dreyfus 
innocent.  It  would  have  given  me  happi- 
ness ;  it  would  have  flattered  my  self-esteem 
to  prove  him  innocent.  My  conviction  has 
been  gradually  transformed  by  this  mass  of 
evidence  ;  my  conviction  of  his  guilt  has 
been  strengthened.  On  my  soul  and  con- 
science, Dreyfus  is  guilty  !  " 

Thus  ended  the  7th  ;  on  the  8th  came 
Demange.  It  was  known  that  he  would 
speak  all  day,  and  I,  for  one,  looked  forward 
to  it  with  gloom.  There  had  been  nothing 
brilliant,  nothing  dashing  about  Maitre  De- 
mange.  He  looks  exactly  what  he  is — a 
plain  lawyer,  who  wants  to  win  his  cases, 


DEMANGE.  267 

and  is  quite  satisfied  when  he  does.  He 
would  stand  as  the  type  of  lawyer  anywhere 
—fat,  clean-shaven,  ruddy-gilled,  with  an 
expression  compounded  from  the  vinegar  of 
jurisprudence  and  the  sweet  milk  of  humanity. 
Were  he  an  English  Q.C.,  which  he  might 
be  perfectly,  you  would  pronounce  him  at 
once  a  Bencher  of  his  Inn  and  a  judge  of 
port.  He  had  fought  the  Dreyfus  case,  if 
"fight"  is  the  word,  like  a  lawyer,  Labori 
like  a  politician — a  demagogue  or  a  tribune 
of  the  people,  whichever  you  prefer.  It  was 
said  that  neither  quite  liked  the  other's 
methods,  though  no  sign  of  disloyalty  came 
from  either.  As  a  fact,  they  supplemented 
each  other  admirably.  When  Labori  was 
away,  Demange  certainly  did  incline  to  be 
sluggish.  The  evidence  which  he  ignored 
may  have  been  contemptible  to  him,  but  he 
allowed  a  mountain  of  prepossession  to  rise 
up  in  the  minds  of  the  judges.  With  Labori 
there  to  force  the  game  Demange  was  ad- 
mirable— knowing  the  case  in  every  line, 
sticking  rigidly  to  minor  points,  irritating 
nobody.  You  will  see  the  way  he  conducted 
his  case  in  one  instance.  The  last  day  of 


268  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

the  evidence  General  Mercier  came  up  and 
in  a  sneaking  way  tried  to  discount  Frey- 
staetter's  evidence  by  wholly  inapposite  and 
slanderous  researches  into  his  past.  The 
Freystaetter  scene,  you  remember,  was  the 
most  smashing  blow,  controversially,  that 
Mercier  received.  But  Demange  yielded 
the  general  his  point  instantly — at  the  same 
time  maintaining  his  own.  "  No  need  to  in- 
sist," he  said;  "we  are  here  in  1899  to  trY 
Dreyfus  on  the  evidence  ;  what  happened  in 
1894  is  not  in  the  least  to  the  point."  Nor 
was  it. 

Demange  got  up,  hitched  up  his  gown, 
and  took  a  look  at  the  judges  with  the 
placidity  of  a  man  who  knows  his  business 
and  is  just  about  to  do  it.  And  then  he 
began  his  speech  quite  quietly.  No  raising 
of  the  voice,  no  gestures,  no  flourishes  of 
language  -  -  just  a  plain  reasonable  man 
speaking  to  plain  reasonable  men.  But 
before  he  had  spoken  two  sentences  you 
saw  that  here  was  a  master.  Not  a  great 
emotional  orator — for  aught  I  know,  not  a 
great  lawyer — but  a  great  pleader,  a  master 
of  his  business,  which  is  to  persuade  men. 


DEMANGE.  269 

He  began  by  saying  he  would  make  no 
exordium,  which  at  once  accredited  him  to 
the  judges,  sated  with  words  and  words  and 
words.  In  five  minutes  he  was  making  an 
exordium — so  cunningly  that  they  did  not 
know  it.  It  was  the  old  classical  trick  of 
attracting  your  hearers'  sympathy  at  the 
outset,  and  Demange  did  it  with  supreme 
skill.  A  witness  had  said  that  whoever 
believed  in  the  innocence  of  Dreyfus  was  an 
enemy  of  the  army  and  the  country.  "  If 
that  were  so,"  he  said,  and  his  voice  was 
rising,  "  neither  Labori  nor  I  would  be  here." 
And  then  his  arm  began  to  move  as  though 
despite  himself,  and  his  voice  began  to  swell 
and  shake — "  When  I  thought  a  moment 
that  there  might  be  danger  to  what  I  have 
been  taught  from  childhood  to  respect,  to 
honour,  to  love — I,  a  Frenchman — I,  a 
soldier's  son — well,  yes,  I,  too,  suffered  with 
your  sufferings,  and  my  heart  beat  in  unison 
with  yours." 

He  was  one  of  the  judges  from  that 
moment.  Not  a  pleader  for  the  man  against 
whom  their  natural  prejudices  revolted,  but 
a  plain,  honest  patriot  like  themselves,  trying 


270  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

to  see  whether  patriotism  could  not  leave 
room  for  justice  and  mercy.  He  might 
henceforth  persuade  them,  and  he  might 
not ;  but,  in  any  case,  they  would  now  listen 
to  him.  He  worked  them  up  a  moment  with 
a  glance  at  Devil's  Island  and  then  brought 
them  down  to  a  point  of  law.  Here  he  was 
a  plain  man  who  happened  to  know  the  law 
just  informing  plain  men  who  might  happen 
not  to.  Then  he  had  them  back  to  France 
and  the  flag,  then  to  the  agonies  of  the 
banished  husband  and  father.  One  moment 
he  had  them  all  anxiety  to  learn,  to  under- 
stand, to  appreciate ;  the  next  a  couple  of 
them  were  in  tears.  When  he  had  them 
well  disposed,  he  entered  on  a  survey  of  the 
evidence.  Not  one  word  did  he  say  whereby 
the  fiercest  partisan  against  Dreyfus  could  be 
offended.  He  was  not  there  to  offend,  but 
to  persuade.  Now  he  was  severely  logical, 
now  slyly  sarcastic,  now  all  pity,  now  all 
indignation,  now  all  common  sense.  His 
voice  and  manner  changed  with  the  subject 
and  the  method  of  treatment ;  one  moment 
he  was  sluicing  out  words  sixty  miles  an 
hour,  the  next  hanging  on  every  syllable  ;  in 


DEMANGE.  271 

seven  hours — four  on  the  8th,  three  on  the 
9th — he  was  never  monotonous  for  a  mo- 
ment. He  never  let  the  judges  out  of  his 
hand  for  an  instant.  They  were  his  raw 
material,  and  he  worked  them,  worked  them, 
worked  them  with  the  zeal  of  an  apprentice 
and  the  knowledge  of  a  master.  He  was 
not  thinking  of  Picquart,  nor  of  Esterhazy, 
nor  of  the  General  Staff,  nor  of  France,  nor 
even,  as  a  man,  of  the  worn  but  hopeful  face 
below  him.  He  was  thinking  of  the  odd 
judge  whom  he  might  win  over,  of  his  case, 
and  of  his  client.  It  was  his  business  to  get 
that  client  off,  and  he  would  do  it  if  it  could 
be  done. 

When  he  finished,  at  eleven  or  so  on 
Saturday  morning,  he  wrapped  a  huge 
muffler  round  his  throat.  He  had  done  all 
that  a  man  could  do  to  save  Dreyfus ;  but 
was  that  any  reason  why  he  should  catch 
cold  and  lose  his  voice  ? 


272   THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 


XIX. 

"  GUILTY  ! " 

"  IN  the  name  of  the  French  people...." 
The  hands  of  all  the  officers  were  at  the 
salute,  the  rifles  of  the  soldiers  at  the  present. 
The  President  was  dull-red  above  his  white 
moustache,  and  his  voice,  hardly  audible, 
seemed  to  come  through  a  channel  too  small 
for  it.  The  judges — they  had  been  out 
deliberating  for  an  hour  and  a  half — stood  on 
either  hand  quite  still. 

The  audience,  standing  too,  was  dead 
silent.  The  man  in  front  of  me — a  man  with 
a  flat  forehead  and  a  curious  bald  head,  in 
the  shape  of  a  sugar-loaf — was  trembling  so 
violently  that  he  had  to  hold  himself  up  by 
the  bench  before  him. 

"  The  Council  of  War  of  the  Tenth  Dis- 
trict, sitting  .  .  .  "  —  his  voice  is  strangled  : 
you  cannot  hear.  Presently  comes  some- 
thing— "  foreign  Power — war  against  France 
— delivering  documents  .  .  .  bordereau'' 


"  GUILTY!"  273 

That  was  the  charge  :  now  it  is  coming. 
Shaking  hands  make  funnels  of  ears  ;  breath 
catches  ;  hearts  catch  and  stand  still.  The 
thin  voice  pauses  and  for  a  moment  is  clear. 

"  By  five  votes  to  two — guilty  ..." 
Ah !  It  burst  from  every  part  of  the  hall  at 
once,  half  gasp,  half  sob — the  sound  with 
which  men  take  wounds  they  half  expected. 
Not  a  single  word  did  any  man  articulate. 
Only  that  one  choking  shiver — the  voice  of 
souls  that  could  find  no  words. 

The  whisper  from  the  stage  rustled  on 
and  on,  but  nobody  heard  or  heeded  it. 
There  was  something  about  "extenuating 
circumstances  "  and  "  ten  years,"  but  nobody 
seemed  to  know  or  care  what  it  was.  The 
six  stiff  figures  were  still  on  either  side  of 
the  whisper.  The  hall,  black  with  witnesses 
and  press,  blue  and  white  with  gendarmes, 
still  stood  quite  stark  and  motionless.  They 
were  neither  glad  nor  angry,  but  only  dimly 
aware  that  it  was  over,  and  that  yet  some- 
how it  was  still  going  on. 

"  Leave  in  the  greatest  calm.  ..."  Yes, 
we  discovered  that  we  were  leaving,  and 
God  knows  we  were  calm.  I  looked  round 


274  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

at  my  neighbours  ;  I  looked  at  the  detec- 
tives ;  I  looked  at  the  faces  of  the  soldiers  as 
I  passed  ;  they  were  all  calm,  and  even 
looked  a  little  frightened.  I  turned  at  the 
door  to  look  up  the  hall :  Demange  and 
Labori  were  both  in  tears,  which  seemed 
strange  ;  but  the  Commissary  and  the  Regis- 
trar were  still  sitting  moveless  at  their  accus- 
tomed desks.  Was  it  over,  after  all  ?  Only 
before  the  long  table  of  the  judges,  hiding  it, 
stood  shoulder  to  shoulder  a  close  rank  of  huge 
gendarmes.  They  hid  the  judges  altogether. 
Somehow  that  seemed  quite  orderly  and 
natural  too. 

Where  were  the  predicted  storms  of 
passion — the  exultation  of  the  conquerors, 
the  curses  of  the  defeated  ?  If  the  case  had 
not  been  too  grim  for  laughing,  it  was 
comical.  As  we  went  into  court  that  morn- 
ing, and  again  when  the  court  resumed  in 
the  afternoon,  detectives  had  passed  their 
hands  over  every  man  to  make  sure  he 
carried  no  arms.  Inside  the  court  gendarmes 
stood  along  every  wall,  files  of  them  split  up 
the  seated  spectators,  squads  of  them  blocked 
up  all  the  doorways.  Half  the  audience  who 


"GUILTY!"  275 

were  not  journalists  were  police  in  plain 
clothes.  Outside,  Rennes  was  a  camp.  And 
here  were  the  fiercest  partisans  on  either  side 
trooping  out  like  sheep — not  defying  oppo- 
nents, hardly  speaking  to  friends,  not  even 
remembering  to  light  cigarettes.  All  were 
stunned.  The  very  men  who  had  anticipated 
the  verdict  for  weeks — had  even  named  the 
figures  and  the  judges  who  were  to  vote 
either  way — were  silent  and  stupid,  as  under 
the  shock  of  something  unforeseen  and  ap- 
palling. All  were  dazed,  scared,  stunned. 

We  passed  out  along  the  familiar  street, 
through  the  barriers  of  infantry,  past  the  long 
lines  of  mounted  gendarmes  and  the  horse- 
tail plumes  of  dragoons.  It  seemed  to  be 
the  latter  part  of  the  afternoon — of  a  fine 
afternoon  with  rare  gusts  of  dust-storm 
whirling  under  the  clear  sun  of  September 
and  a  tender  blue  sky.  From  the  multitude 
of  people — dotted  over  every  square,  leaning 
in  a  mile-long  fringe  over  the  railings  of  the 
quay,  grouped  at  the  door  of  every  shop, 
choking  up  the  tables  of  every  cafe — it 
seemed  to  be  a  Saturday  afternoon.  We 
knew  nothing.  We  had  been  in  court  four 

T  2 


276  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

hours  in  the  morning  hearing  Demange  say 

again  and  again   that  it  is  not  enough  for 

justice  to  prove  that  an  accused  person  may 

be  guilty ;    that  before  he  is  condemned   it 

should  be  proved  he  is  guilty.    After  that  we 

had  been  out  of  court  three  hours  wondering 

—trying  to  believe  that  the  court  would  say 

so  too.     We  had  been   in  court  again — two 

hours,    the    watch   said — trying    to    talk   of 

something  else  while  the  judges  were  away, 

starting  up  at  the  first  bell   that   spoke   of 

their   returning,   standing   still    and   gulping 

ten  minutes — was  it,  or  ten  years  ? — till  they 

came    in   and  we   heard  "In   the   name  of 

the  French  people !  " 

"In  the  name  of  the  French  people!" 
The  first  beginning  of  natural  life  again 
was  a  dull,  hot,  unreasonable  rancour  against 
the  French  people — against  calm  Rennes— 
against  the  honest  troopers  at  their  horses' 
bridles — the  army — the  judges — anybody. 
Reason  had  whispered  for  weeks  that  you 
must  allow  for  prejudice,  for  prepossessions 
honestly  and  even  creditably  come  by  and 
difficult  to  shake  off,  for  the  delicacies  of 
the  judges'  positions,  for  the  suspicious 


"  GUILTY  1 "  277 

mysteries  of  the  case,  for  misconceptions  of 
the  attitude  of  the  accused.  There  was 
every  reason  why  it  should  be  so — and  it 
was  so,  and  we  were  bitterly  angry.  The 
band  was  playing  in  the  cafe",  I  remember, 
as  I  passed — the  usual  band  that  amuses  us 
every  evening  ;  what  an  outrage  ! 

Rennes  was  calm.  Men  were  tugging 
barges  up  the  river,  and  women  were  wash- 
ing clothes — just  as  they  had  done  yesterday 
before  this  portent  fell.  They  were  playing 
cards  in  the  cafes  and  cheapening  bonnets  in 
the  shops  ;  I  met  a  couple  of  priests  and  they 
did  not  even  look  exultant.  It  was  monstrous. 
This  monstrous  wrong  was  done  :  a  man 
whom  most  believe  innocent,  whom  none 
can  prove  guilty,  was  coolly,  deliberately, 
solemnly  condemned,  and  condemned  for  the 
second  time.  And  Rennes  was  calm — my 
God  !  calm.  Better  that  they  had  torn  him 
to  pieces  with  their  hands. 

While  we  were  beginning  to  rage,  they 
were  reading  the  sentence  to  Dreyfus.  We 
remembered  that  in  the  morning  Labori  had 
handed  him  a  telegram  and  he  had  smiled. 
When  you  see  Dreyfus  close  his  cheek  is 


278  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

faintly  ruddy — had  been,  at  least,  these  last 
three  days  or  so — and  the  moustache  that  is 
a  black  death's-head  grin  at  a  distance,  is 
warmly  brown  ;  the  smile  we  noticed  trans- 
muted his  haggard  face  to  winning  sweetness. 
Later,  as  Demange  pleaded,  we  had  seen 
him  with  his  eyes  glued  to  the  faces  across 
the  table.  Once  or  twice  we  had  seen  him 
in  tears — heard  him  sob.  And  just  before 
the  judges  left — before  he  went  out,  the 
gendarme  ever  behind  him,  to  wrench  his 
brain  a  little  tighter  on  the  rack  of  suspense 
—he  had  spoken  his  last  word.  It  came 
up  from  his  chest  thick  with  tears,  choked 
with  anxiety,  flat  and  toneless,  yet  intense, 
terrible,  almost  bestial  with  jarring  hope  and 
despair — the  old  cry — "  Innocence  .  .  .  ' 
"my  soldier's  honour  .  .  .  '  "five  years 
awful  torture  .  .  .  "  "  convinced  I  shall  reach 
port  to-day  .  .  .  "  "  your  loyalty  and  justice." 
Then  he  turned,  and  with  a  firm  step  and  a 
clamped,  chalk-white  face  strode  out,  and  we 
saw  him  no  more. 

When  the  hall  was  emptied  they  formed 
up  the  guard  before  the  dais  and  brought 
him  in.  The  judges  were  gone.  He  faced 


"  GUILTY!"  279 

leftwardr  towards  the  Commissary  of  the 
Government  and  the  Registrar.  The  last 
read  out  the  sentence.  "In  the  name  of 
the  French  people  .  .  .  guilty  .  .  .  ten  years' 
imprisonment  .  .  .  military  degradation." 
The  Commissary  told  him  he  had  twenty- 
four  hours  within  which  to  appeal.  He 
heard  them  in  stockish  silence.  He  uttered 
not  one  word.  At  the  end  he  turned,  and 
with  the  same  firm  step,  the  same  clamped 
and  chalk-white  face,  marched  out,  and  the 
prison  swallowed  him  up  again.  "In 
the  name  of  the  French  people  !  " 


280  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 


XX. 

FRANCE  AFTER  DREYFUS. 

IN  a  way  the  most  remarkable  feature  about 
the  verdict  of  Rennes  was  the  proportion  of 
the  votes.  When  it  had  been  over  a  few 
hours,  and  numb  brains  had  relaxed  to 
thought  again,  it  struck  somebody  that  on 
the  very  first  day  the  very  first  motion  had 
been  carried  by  five  to  two.  The  next 
and  the  next  and  all  of  them  had  been  carried 
by  five  to  two.  Now  Dreyfus  was  con- 
demned by  five  to  two.  The  idea — the 
staggering  idea — dropped  like  a  stone  into 
the  mind,  and  spread  in  widening  circles  till 
it  filled  it  with  conviction.  Every  one  of  the 
judges  had  made  up  his  mind  before  a  single 
word  of  evidence  had  been  heard.  The 
twenty-seven  days,  the  hundred-and-some- 
thing  witnesses,  the  baskets  of  documents, 
the  seas  of  sweat  and  tears — they  were  all 
utterly  wasted.  They  might  just  as  well— 


FRANCE  AFTER  DREYFUS.   281 

and  if  as  well,  then  much  better — never  have 
been. 

The  verdict  was,  naturally,  received  with 
a  howl  of  indignation,  and  to  endeavour  to 
extenuate  the  stupid  prejudice — that,  at  least, 
if  not  cowardly  dishonesty — of  the  five  who 
voted  against  the  evidence  is  not  likely  to  be 
popular  with  civilised  readers.  Yet  it  may 
be  said  of  them  in  extenuation — if  it  is  any 
extenuation — that  they  only  did  as  almost 
any  other  five  Frenchmen  would  have  done 
in  their  place.  Frenchmen  are  hypnotised 
by  the  case  of  Dreyfus,  as  some  people  are 
hypnotised  by  religion  ;  in  its  presence 
they  lose  all  mental  power  and  moral  sense. 

There  is  no  reason,  therefore,  to  suppose 
that  the  majority  of  the  Rennes  Court  - 
Martial  were  consciously  dishonest  in  their 
verdict.  I  take  it  they  started  with  the 
belief  that  Dreyfus  was  guilty,  with  the 
desire  to  have  him  proved  guilty,  though  not 
with  the  intention  of  finding  him  guilty,  and 
the  trial  turned  out  especially  propitious 
for  a  conscience  of  this  kind.  What  ruined 
Dreyfus's  case  was  the  assumption  made— 
probably  in  good  faith  in  1894,  and  made 


282  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

again  in  1899 — at  tne  verv  beginning  by  all 
the  generals  and,  we  may  infer,  by  five  of  the 
judges,  that  the  notes  of  the  bordereau  were 
all  highly  important  documents.  Picquart 
and  Hartmann  saw  the  importance  of  this 
point  and  laboured  to  destroy  it  ;  but  the 
prejudice  of  five  years  was  too  strong. 
Granting  that  these  notes  were  of  the  first 
importance,  it  was  easy  to  show  that  the 
information  was  inaccessible  to  Esterhazy, 
and  by  a  process  of  exclusion  among  those 
who  could  get  it  the  traitor  was  almost 
necessarily  Dreyfus. 

The  case  against  Esterhazy  lost  by  the 
same  assumption  exactly  what  the  case 
against  Dreyfus  gained.  Indeed,  the  case 
against  Esterhazy  was  hardly  pushed  as  it 
should  have  been.  To  tell  the  truth,  there 
was  not  too  much  evidence  against  him 
produced  at  Rennes,  and  I,  for  one,  should 
have  hesitated  to  condemn  him  on  it.  The 
strongest  part  of  it,  excluding  the  testimony 
of  the  Germans,  was  the  handwriting— 
and  here  Bertillon's  specious  pseudo-science 
was  a  god-send  to  the  man  who  wanted  to 
juggle  his  conscience  into  voting  against 


FRANCE  AFTER  DREYFUS.   283 

Dreyfus.  The  confessions  had  the  vice  of 
being  inconsistent  with  each  other,  and  it 
was  easy  to  argue  that  Esterhazy  was  paid 
to  make  them  ;  if  you  respond,  as  Esterhazy 
did,  that  he  is  living  at  present  in  poverty, 
there  is  an  answer  ready  enough  ;  what  sane 
corrupter  but  would  make  it  a  condition  of 
his  bribe  that  it  should  not  be  exposed  by 
being  prematurely  enjoyed  ? 

Esterhazy's  guilt  once  ruled  out — and  I 
think  it  was  ruled  out  very  early  in  the  trial 
Dreyfus's  conviction  almost  certainly 
followed.  The  five  judges  probably,  Jouaust 
almost  obviously,  reasoned  thus  :  we  are  not 
trying  Esterhazy ;  therefore  we  will  not 
trouble  to  apply  our  consciences  to  his  case  ; 
now,  Esterhazy  being  set  aside,  who  can  the 
traitor  be  but  Dreyfus?  Therefore,  unless 
it  is  proved  materially  impossible  for  Dreyfus 
to  have  been  the  traitor,  we  conclude  that 
Dreyfus  was  the  traitor.  It  was  all  the 
easier  to  do  this  because  Labori  was  the  only 
man  who  seemed  to  realise  the  vital  import- 
ance of  proving  Esterhazy  guilty  ;  Demange 
said  in  so  many  words  that  he  cared  nothing 
at  all  about  Esterhazy.  The  end  was  that  it 


284  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

was  not  proved  materially  impossible  for 
Dreyfus  to  be  the  traitor.  De  Fond- 
Lamothe  all  but  did  it  with  his  circular  as  to 
the  manoeuvres — did  do  it  to  any  reasonable 
mind  in  the  absence  of  any  evidence  that 
Dreyfus  asked  to  go — but  the  generals  pro- 
duced a  sort  of  answer  which  just  saw  them 
through.  They  did,  perhaps,  just  establish 
that  it  is  not  materially  impossible  for  Dreyfus 
to  have  betrayed  the  notes  of  the  bordereau. 
That  was  all  they  even  pretended  to  do — "  il 
a  pu"  "  he  might  have,"  came  out  of  their 
mouths  in  answer  to  two  questions  out  of 
three — but  it  was  all  they  needed  to  do. 

The  most  extraordinary  and  indefensible 
step  that  Colonel  Jouaust  in  particular,  and 
the  majority  of  the  judges,  took  was  the 
refusal  to  examine  von  Schwarzkoppen,  and 
the  determination  to  ignore  the  official  state- 
ment in  the  German  Reichsanzeiger  that  no 
German  agent  had  ever  had  direct  or  indirect 
relations  with  Dreyfus.  Of  course,  this  is 
only  another  example  of  the  Dreyfus-hypno- 
tism ;  it  seems  the  judges  did  after  all 
sincerely  believe  in  the  analogy  about  the 
receiver  and  the  thief.  But  the  sincerest 


FRANCE  AFTER  DREYFUS.   285 

belief  in  the  world  cannot  excuse  such  wanton 
wickedness  ;  rather,  it  makes  it  worse.  For 
it  means  that  five  French  officers,  officially 
presumed  to  be  gentlemen,  have  been  so 
worked  on  by  the  Dreyfus  case  and  the 
passions  it  has  engendered,  that  they  have 
quite  forgotten  what  a  gentleman's  word  of 
honour  is.  They  do  not  believe  Schwarz- 
koppen  nor  Mlinster — no,  nor  yet  Wilhelm  II. 
—on  their  words  of  honour.  The  only  in- 
ference is  that  in  a  like  case  they  would  not 
expect  to  be  believed  on  their  own. 

The  finding  of  extenuating  circumstances 
at  first  sight  was  quite  fatal  to  the  judges' 
good  faith :  what  circumstances  could  ex- 
tenuate the  guilt  of  a  French  officer  who 
betrayed  the  most  vital  secrets  of  France  ? 
But  the  truth  appears  to  be  that  extenuating 
circumstances  are  brought  in  in  France  when 
a  considerable  minority  is  for  acquittal  ;  and 
in  this  case  one  more  judge  for  Dreyfus 
would  have  meant  a  verdict  amounting  to 
not  proven.  The  two  judges,  therefore, 
who  voted  for  acquittal  have  the  satisfaction 
of  knowing  that  even  if  the  verdict  stands, 
they  have  at  least  won  for  Dreyfus  remission 


286  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

of  some  part  of  his  destined  torments.  The 
names  of  those  two  courageous,  honourable 
and  clear-minded  men  I  do  not  know. 
In  a  country  like  France,  where  to  be 
known  would  only  do  them  harm,  I  should 
not  attempt  to  find  out ;  but  they  probably 
will  be  known  before  this  is  published,  and 
they  are  not  the  least  of  the  heroes  of  the 
Dreyfus  case.* 

I  have  said  the  best  I  can  say  for  the 
Rennes  judges,  because  it  is  generally  safer 
to  say  the  best  than  the  worst ;  yet  the  best 
is  very  bad.  For  France  I  am  not  sure  but 
the  hypothesis  of  their  honest  inability  to 
weigh  evidence  about  Dreyfus  is  not  more 
ominous  than  dishonest  and  cowardly  sub- 
mission to  the  wishes  of  generals.  It  means 

*  All  published  accounts  agree  that  Captain  Beauvais — 
who  publicly  shook  hands  with  Demange  after  the  announce- 
ment of  the  verdict — was  one  ;  the  other  is  variously  given  as 
Major  de  Bre'on,  Major  Merle,  and  Captain  Parfait.  Of  the 
first  the  Figaro  had  a  pretty  story  that  he  was  seen  in  a 
church  the  night  before  in  long  and  urgent  prayer  ;  therefore, 
for  the  credit  of  the  Church  in  France,  you  would  be  glad 
if  it  were  he.  Major  Merle  shed  tears  during  Demange's 
speech  ;  on  the  strength  of  that  it  was  said  that  he  had  been 
undecided  till  the  last  moment,  was  won  by  Demange,  but 
was  re-won  by  his  superiors  in  the  jury-room,  and  gave  in  on 
condition  of.  the  finding  of  extenuating  circumstances. 


FRANCE  AFTER  DREYFUS.   287 

that  France  has  forgotten  what  justice  is. 
Alfred  Dreyfus  has  inflicted  on  her  this 
awful  retribution  for  his  wrongs.  Nothing 
that  has  been  suffered  by  him — and  this  is 
the  most  tremendous  irony  of  the  whole 
tragedy — has  gone  unavenged.  For  four 
years  a  prisoner  on  a  feverish  island  off  the 
coast  of  Guiana,  Dreyfus  has  been  shaping 
the  destinies  of  France.  He  has  altered  the 
laws,  set  up  and  thrown  down  governments, 
made  and  unmade  men,  knit  close  friend- 
ships, ripped  asunder  the  dearest  ties  of 
blood.  At  last,  like  a  pursuing  fury,  he 
seems  about  to  drive  the  France  that  murdered 
him  into  frenzied  self-destruction.  And,  to 
pile  irony  on  irony,  of  Alfred  Dreyfus  him- 
self the  world,  even  France,  would  never 
have  heard  a  word,  had  he  lived  to  be  a 
hundred,  but  for  mere  chance.  The  jealousy 
of  a  fellow,  the  offence  of  a  moment,  the 
accident  of  his  creed — anything — nothing- 
has  turned  him  from  an  utterly  obscure  cap- 
tain of  artillery  into  the  most  famous  name 
in  the  world. 

The  whole    affair,   the  whole    importance 
and  notoriety  of  Dreyfus,  was  accidental  and 


288  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

artificial.  Since  he  has  left  the  Devil's  Island 
he  has  agitated  France  far  less  than  while  he 
was  there.  Indeed,  when,  in  1895,  M.  Dupuy 
and  General  Mercier  took  the  trouble  to  pass 
a  special  law  to  relegate  Dreyfus  to  the 
Devil's  Island,  they  did  the  worst  day's  work 
of  their  lives.  Had  he  been  sent  in  the 
natural  course  to  New  Caledonia,  it  is 
possible  that  he  might  be  there  still,  for- 
gotten. "  Possible,"  I  say,  because  he  is  a 
Jew,  and  Jews  do  not  readily  forget  or  cast 
off  their  own  people  ;  had  he  been  a  Gentile 
he  had  almost  certainly  been  forgotten  in 
New  Caledonia. 

But  the  chance  of  combining  ferocity  with 
theatrical  display  was  too  much  for  a  French 
Ministry.  The  public  degradation  of  Dreyfus, 
with  its  blended  accompaniments  of  imposing 
ceremonial  and  heartrending  torture,  was, 
after  all,  not  too  severe  for  the  crime  of 
which  all  Frenchmen  then  honestly  believed 
him  guilty.  But  the  added  cruelty  of  making 
a  special  law  for  him,  sending  him  to  a 
special  place  of  banishment,  tormenting  him 
with  every  special  penalty  or  deprivation 
that  could  make  life  a  hell — that  recoiled  on 


FRANCE  AFTER  DREYFUS.   289 

its  authors.  The  stage-management  was 
too  good,  the  situation  was  too  dramatic,  to 
be  forgotten.  Dreyfus  on  his  own  island— 
the  very  name  of  Devil's  Island  was  a 
melodrama  in  itself — sitting  in  the  sun  within 
his  palisade,  in  irons,  asking  his  guards  for 
news  and  met  always  with  dead  silence,  in- 
formed— as  we  now  know — that  his  wife  had 
borne  a  child  two  years  after  he  last  saw 
her  :  who  could  ever  get  the  picture  of  such 
a  purgatory  out  of  his  head  ?  Under  the 
last  blow  a  Frenchman  would  have  killed 
himself;  but  the  Alsatian  Jew  was  made  of 
stiffer  fibre.  He  lived  on,  and  his  country- 
men, with  the  spectacle  of  that  awful  agony 
ever  before  their  eyes,  first  exulted,  then 
came  to  doubt,  insisted,  disputed,  reviled, 
lied,  forged,  fought,  forgot  friendship,  kin- 
ship, party,  religion,  country  —  everything 
except  the  silent  man  in  irons  under  the  sun 
of  Devil's  Island. 

But  when  he  was  brought  back — when  he 
was  once  more  Alfred  Dreyfus,  captain  of 
artillery,  in  the  cell  of  the  military  prison  at 
Rennes,  charged  with  having  communicated 
to  a  foreign  Power  documents  concerning  the 

u 


290  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

national  defence,  tried  on  that  charge  before  a 
court-martial  of  his  peers — then  France  was  no 
longer  haunted  by  him.  The  avenging  ghost 
was  momentarily  laid.  Calm  overspread  the 
land.  Many  men  had  openly  declared  that 
Dreyfus  ran  a  chance  of  being  shot  between 
his  point  of  debarkation  and  the  prison  of 
Rennes  ;  he  was  not  even  hissed.  There  has 
not  been  a  single  demonstration  outside  his 
prison  worthy  of  ten  lines  in  a  newspaper. 
And — lest  you  should  put  down  that  fact  to 
the  congenital  torpor  of  Rennes — in  the 
excitable  south,  in  the  great  military  centres, 
in  the  manufacturing  centres,  in  volcanic 
Paris  itself,  Dreyfus  has  not  been  the  occa- 
sion of  a  single  disturbance  of  any  significance 
since  he  was  landed  in  France. 

Language  remained  violent  enough  and 
vile  enough,  it  is  true ;  such  a  furious  habit 
of  blackguarding  opponents  as  has  grown 
up  with  the  Dreyfus  case  in  France  could 
hardly  be  stilled  in  a  day.  But  everybody 
felt  more  at  ease.  From  the  half-indifferent, 
wholly  perplexed  mass  of  the  people,  when 
Dreyfus  returned,  went  up  a  great  "  Ouf !  " 
of  relief.  Now  at  last,  said  they,  we  shall 


FRANCE  AFTER  DREYFUS.   291 

have  the  truth,  we  shall  have  finality  in  this 
wretched  affair,  thereafter  we  shall  have  peace. 
And  the  other  day,  when  it  was  over  and  he 
was  condemned  again,  the  "Ouf!"  went  up 
out  of  even  fuller  lungs.  The  verdict  de- 
lighted them.  There  was  to  be  no  more 
haunting  Devil's  Island,  and  at  the  same 
time  the  honour  of  the  army  was  saved. 
The  vast  majority  of  the  people  of  France 
rejoiced  as  after  a  great  victory ;  and  they 
looked  forward  more  than  ever  with  confidence 
to  peace  and  harmony  in  France  again. 


* 


It  might  re-enforce  that  hope  to  consider 
how  wholly  irrelevant  to  all  great  material 
issues  the  Dreyfus  case  has  been.  At  the 
first  glance  it  seems  that  France  has  chosen 
to  lose  her  head  over  a  matter  which  she 
might  just  as  well  have  let  alone,  which  is 
over  now,  and  has  left  her  where  she  was 
before.  Whether  Dreyfus  or  Esterhazy 
betrayed  documents,  or  both,  or  neither,  it 
is  certain  that  no  other  French  officer  will  be 
tempted  to  do  the  same  for  years  enough 
to  come.  Even  if  wrong  has  been  done— 
if  the  innocent  has  been  punished  and  the 

U    2 


292  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

guilty  has  gone  free,  after  all,  it  is  only  one 
man.  And  it  is  expedient  that  one  man 
should  suffer  for  the  whole  people. 

So  argued,  and  would  argue  again, 
more  than  half  of  France.  And  just  be- 
cause they  argue  thus,  they  are  utterly  and 
fatally  wrong.  It  may  be  expedient  to 
sacrifice  one  man  for  a  country — when  the 
detection  of  sacrifice  and  of  expediency  is 
left  to  others.  But  when  the  country  argues 
thus  itself,  when  it  sacrifices  the  innocent  one 
with  its  eyes  open,  then  the  sacrifice  is  not 
expedient,  but  ruinous.  It  is  this  truth  that 
Picquart  saw  and  proclaimed  three  years 
ago.  When  Dreyfus  was  first  condemned, 
it  is  probable  that  everybody  concerned,  even 
Du  Paty  de  Clam,  who  examined  him,  and 
Mercier,  who  procured  his  conviction,  honestly 
believed  him  guilty.  But  from  the  moment 
the  people  suspected  his  innocence  and  still 
let  him  suffer — from  that  moment  began  the 
convulsion,  the  dissensions,  the  moral  putre- 
faction, and  all  the  rest  of  the  discovered 
distempers  of  France. 

It  was  known  in  widening  circles,  first  to 
a  few  soldiers,  then  to  journalists  and  poll- 


FRANCE  AFTER  DREYFUS.   293 

ticians,  then  to  everybody  who  cared  to  be 
convinced  to-day — to  everybody  with  ears  to 
hear — that  Dreyfus,  if  not  innocent,  had  not 
yet  been  proved  guilty.  In  the  face  of  that 
knowledge  France  still  howls,  "  Let  him 
suffer ! "  It  is  at  once  the  grimmest  and 
grotesquest  spectacle  in  history — a  whole 
nation,  knowing  that  justice  has  not  been 
done,  keenly  excited  about  the  question,  and 
yet  not  caring  a  sou  whether  justice  is  done 
or  not.  What  matter,  cries  France,  whether 
he  is  justly  condemned  or  not  ?  Shoot  him 
rather  than  discredit  the  army.  And  even 
of  the  minority — of  the  Dreyfusards  that 
exclaim  against  his  martyrdom  and  pre- 
pare to  show  that  the  verdict  of  Rennes 
has  brought  not  peace  but  a  sword— who 
shall  say  how  few  care  for  doing  justice  to 
a  man  who  is  innocent,  and  how  many 
give  tongue  merely  because  they  hate  the 
army,  or  the  Roman  Church,  or  Chris- 
tianity, or  France  herself?  All  but  the 
whole  nation — the  nation  which  professes 
itself  the  most  civilised  in  the  world — 
publicly  proclaims  that  it  cares  nothing  for 
the  first  essential  of  civic  morality.  Partly 


294  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

it  is  the  petulance  of  a  spoiled  child  which 
will  not  see  the  patent  truth,  partly  the 
illogical  logic  of  French  intelligence  which 
will  commit  any  insanity  that  is  recom- 
mended in  the  form  of  a  syllogism,  partly 
the  sheer  indifference  of  a  brute  that  knows 
neither  right  nor  wrong. 

But  why  try  to  analyse  a  phenomenon  so 
despicable  ?  One  thing  is  certain,  common 
justice  is  the  first  and  most  indispensable 
condition  of  a  free  country's  existence.  It 
is  absurd  to  think  that  any  cause  which 
has  led  to  so  deliberate  a  jettison  of  justice 
from  the  national  cargo  can  be  anything 
but  most  portentous  and  most  disastrous  to 
the  nation. 

From  henceforth  every  reflecting  French- 
man knows  that  he  may  be  accused  of  any 
crime,  condemned  on  evidence  he  has  never 
heard  of,  banished,  tormented  in  body  and 
mind,  and  that  hardly  a  soul  among  his 
countrymen  will  care  whether  he  is  getting 
justice  or  injustice.  They  happened  to  take 
sides  about  Dreyfus ;  he  may  have  no  such 
luck.  Dreyfus,  for  the  rights  of  whose  case 
friends  and  foes  cared  nothing,  happened  to 


FRANCE  AFTER  DREYFUS.   295 

be  a  convenient  stick  for  anti-Semites  and 
anti-militarists  to  thump  the  other  side  with  ; 
he  may  not.  Reasoning  thus,  will  the  re- 
flective Frenchman  cultivate  independence 
of  thought,  civic  courage,  political  honesty  ? 
Not  he.  He  will  make  it  his  business  in  life 
to  cultivate  a  safe  obscurity,  and  shout,  if 
shout  he  must,  always  with  the  largest 
crowd. 

The  results  of  such  a  lesson  upon  the 
public  life  of  a  nation  are  not  easy  to  de- 
tect at  once  and  in  glaring  cases  ;  but  you 
may  be  very  sure  they  are  there,  and 
in  the  long  run  they  will  show  them- 
selves. The  French  citizen  was  fearful 
of  unpopularity  before  ;  he  will  not  be  bolder 
now.  The  punishment  of  those  who  have 
suffered  in  Dreyfus's  cause  will  not  be  lost 
on  him.  The  timidity  of  a  Casimir-Perier, 
of  the  President  of  the  Republic  who 
suspected  the  truth  and  dared  not  discover 
it,  will  be  emulated  by  lesser  men.  Cowardice 
will  become  a  principle  of  public  life. 

In  one  respect  alone  can  France  claim 
pity — that  she  became  bankrupt  in  justice 
through  honouring  too  large  a  draft  of  her 


296  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

darling  child,  the  army.  The  army  is  the 
adored  of  France.  A  few  of  the  younger 
men,  still  smarting  from  the  petty  brutalities 
of  sergeants  who  delight  to  bully  boys  of 
a  better  class  than  their  own,  hate  it  bitterly  ; 
but  to  France  as  a  whole  her  army  is  her 
dearest  treasure.  In  a  conscriptive  country 
the  sight  of  troops  in  the  street  is  as  familiar 
as  that  of  policemen  in  London.  In  Ger- 
many or  Austria  a  regiment  will  march  past 
with  drum  and  colours  and  hardly  a  head 
turns  to  follow  it.  But  in  France  the  daily 
passage  of  the  regiment  empties  every  shop, 
and  leaves  the  whole  street  tingling  with 
pride  and  enthusiasm  and  love.  It  does 
not  diminish  this  affection  that  the  last  time 
the  army  took  the  field  it  was  beaten  and 
crumpled  up,  shot  down  by  battalions  and 
carried  into  captivity  by  brigades.  Quite 
the  reverse.  France  feels  a  sort  of  yearning 
to  comfort  her  army  as  a  mother  might 
comfort  an  unsuccessful  son.  And  the  hope 
of  revenge  for  that  humiliation,  on  which  she 
has  lived  for  near  a  generation,  rests  in  the 
army  alone.  The  army — as  they  have  said 
so  often — the  army  is  France.  Everybody 


FRANCE  AFTER  DREYFUS.   297 

has  served  in  it ;  everybody  depends  on  it. 
The  army  is  France. 

Only  that  unlucky  gift  of  bad  logic  led 
France  astray  again.  The  army  being 
France,  they  argue,  the  honour  of  the  army 
is  the  honour  of  France.  Thence  they 
push  on  to  the  facile  fallacy.  The  honour 
of  the  heads  of  the  army  is  the  honour  of  the 
army,  and  therefore  of  France.  Honour,  in 
that  sense,  apparently  means  reputation  for 
honour,  which  comes,  when  you  work  it  out, 
to  the  dictum  that  a  general  can  do  no 
wrong — or  at  least  if  he  does,  nobody  may 
say  so. 

When  Esterhazy  refused  at  the  Zola  trial 
to  answer  questions  relative  to  his  connection 
with  the  German  military  attache,  the  judge, 
M.  Delegorgue,  protected  him.  "  There  is 
something,"  said  he,  "  more  important  than 
a  court  of  justice — the  honour  and  security 
of  the  country."  "  I  gather,"  tartly  replied 
Zola's  counsel,  "  that  the  honour  of  the 
country  allows  an  officer  to  do  such  things, 
but  does  not  allow  them  to  be  spoken  of." 

Precisely.  It  came,  of  course,  in  practice 
to  the  divine  right  of  generals.  If  a  general's 


298  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

act  was  questioned,  he  responded  that  the 
interests  of  the  national  defence  demanded  it, 
and  said  no  more.  France  for  the  most  part 
is  quite  satisfied.  She  has  invented  a  new 
kind  of  government  —  Caesarism  without  a 
Caesar. 

No  general  is  able  or  resolute  enough  to 
impose  his  authority  on  his  fellows.  Had 
any  recent  Minister  of  War  desired  to  make 
himself  dictator  or  bring  in  a  Pretender,  such 
was  the  all-accepting  meekness  of  the  country 
that  he  could  have  done  it.  None  dared, 
and  none  of  the  Pretenders  thought  the 
sceptre  worth  picking  up  out  of  the  gutter. 
The  result  was  that  nobody  knew  or  knows 
who  is  ruling  France  at  any  given  moment, 
or,  indeed,  knows  anything  at  all — except 
that,  whoever  is  ruling,  it  certainly  is  not 
the  President  nor  the  Ministry  of  the  Re- 
public. Summarily  the  Republic,  during  the 
three  years  of  the  Dreyfus  agitation,  has 
abdicated. 

There  is  nothing  surprising  in  that ;  the 
corruption  and  cowardice  of  Ministers,  Sena- 
tors, and  Deputies  had  been  amply  demon- 
strated by  the  scandal  of  Panama.  The 


FRANCE  AFTER  DREYFUS.   299 

Dreyfus    affair    only    overthrew    what     was 
already  tottering. 

But  the  effects  of  government  by  generals 
are  new  and  dismal.  It  was  bad  enough 
that  they  should  arrogate  power  to  override 
every  authority  in  the  State ;  yet  to  usurp 
is  a  generous  crime,  and  to  permit  the 
usurpation  of  the  army  was  in  France  a 
generous  weakness.  The  dismal  portent  is 
the  utter  incapacity  which  the  generals  dis- 
play. The  Dreyfus  case  was  their  own 
game,  and  they  had  all  the  cards  ;  but  for 
the  life  of  them  they  could  not  play  a  single 
one  correctly.  Wherever  it  was  possible 
to  bungle  or  vacillate,  they  bungled  and 
vacillated. 

They  first  admitted  in  the  press  that 
Dreyfus  was  condemned  on  secret  documents 
—that  is,  illegally — and  then  denied  it  in 
the  Chamber.  They  first  contended  that 
Dreyfus  wrote  the  incriminating  bordereau 
because  it  was  like  his  natural  handwriting, 
then  that  he  forged  it,  because  it  was  more 
like  Esterhazy's.  They  tried  to  entrap 
Picquart  by  bogus  cryptograms  that  would 
have  been  childish  in  a  comic  opera.  They 


300  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

filled  the  air  with  asseverations  of  their 
loyalty  to  the  Republic  while  they  were 
openly  violating  its  fundamental  principles. 
They  declared  that  for  the  paramount  honour 
of  the  country  they  would  prefer  a  revolution 
to  the  revision  of  the  Dreyfus  case  ;  then, 
when  it  came  to  the  point,  submitted  in 
tame  silence  to  the  Cour  de  Cassation  and 
General  de  Galliffet's  orders.  They  fought 
the  Rennes  case  with  determination  and 
skill ;  but  once  more  acknowledged  their 
inferiority  to  De  Galliffet  by  leaving  the 
court — at  his  command,  not  the  law's — when 
the  speeches  began.  Worst  of  all  has  been 
their  behaviour,  where  at  least  you  might 
have  expected  dignity  and  spirit,  in  regard 
to  foreign  Powers.  They  withdrew  from 
Fashoda  and  renounced  Egypt  for  ever 
rather  than  fight  Great  Britain,  although 
Marchand's  appearance  on  the  Nile  was 
the  hoped-for  climax  of  the  deliberate 
policy  of  years.  One  day  they  inspired 
impertinent  fables  about  the  Kaiser's 
communications  with  Dreyfus  ;  the  next 
they  sheepishly  denied  them  on  the 
threats  of  his  ambassador.  Now  they  have 


FRANCE  AFTER  DREYFUS.   301 

insulted  Germany  again  ;  but  everybody 
knows  they  will  apologize  if  she  bids  them. 
The  great  international  result  of  three  years 
of  government  by  generals  is  that  France  has 
virtually  showed  herself  unfit  for  war  by  sea 
or  land — afraid  of  England,  terrified  by 
Germany,  the  vassal  of  Russia — all  but  a 
second-rate  Power. 

"What  is  to  become  of  your  army  in 
the  day  of  danger  ? "  cried  General  de 
Pellieux  at  the  trial  of  Zola.  "  What  would 
you  have  your  unhappy  soldiers  do,  led 
under  fire  by  officers  whom  others  have 
striven  to  discredit  in  their  eyes?  ...  It 
is  to  a  mere  butchery  they  are  leading  your 
sons."  It  is — or  would  be,  if  France  were 
mad  enough  to  fight.  There  would  be  as 
ruinous  a  collapse  as  in  1870.  Only  that 
would  not  be  the  work  of  "others,"  but  of 
the  leaders  of  the  army  itself.  They  are 
indeed  discredited — by  their  own  folly.  Few 
people  yet  believe  in  their  honesty,  and  now 
none  in  their  capacity.  Every  man  in  France 
who  knows  anything  of  the  last  three  years' 
history,  in  his  heart  distrusts  his  beloved 
army  utterly.  That  is  the  sum  of  what  the 


302  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

generals,  with  everything  in  their  favour, 
have  been  able  to  do  for  France,  for  the 
army,  and  for  themselves. 

The  degradation  of  politics  and  of  the 
army  has  been  equalled  by  that  of  the  press. 
France  has  never  had  a  journal — unless  we 
except  the  Temps  and  the  present  incarnation 
of  the  Matin — which  an  Anglo-Saxon  public 
would  call  a  newspaper  ;  but  then  she  does 
not  want  one.  She  has  had  journals  which 
supply  what  she  wants — well-considered  and 
elegantly  written  essays  on  the  subjects  of 
the  day.  Such  she  still  finds  in  organs  like 
the  Figaro  and  the  Journal  des  Ddbats  ;  but 
in  the  lower  ranks  of  the  press  the  fatal 
influence  of  the  Dreyfus  case  has  told  vilely. 
American  papers  appear  to  an  Englishman 
free-spoken  in  their  attacks  on  opponents, 
but  the  cheapest  rag  in  New  York  would 
blush  for  the  recklessness,  gullibility  and  foul- 
ness of  the  baser  French  press.  Restraints 
of  good  taste  and  decency  are  quite  obsolete. 
You  call  your  political  opponent  "  a  prodigy 
of  corruption  both  in  public  and  in  private 
life,  with  thirty  years  of  lies,  debauchery, 
bribery,  defamation  and  calumny  behind  him." 


FRANCE  AFTER  DREYFUS.  303 

The  Prime  Minister,  if  you  dislike  his  policy, 
you  describe  as  "only  half  cleansed  of  the 
murder  of  Carnot,  the  butcher  of  Madagascar, 
Hanotaux's  accomplice  in  the  extermination 
of  the  Armenians."  You  never  speak  of 
General  de  Galliffet  by  name,  but  as  "the 
assassin  of  May  "  ;  they  will  know  whom  you 
mean.  M.  Cavaignac  being  personally  irre- 
proachable, it  is  well  to  hark  back  to  his 
ancestors,  and  call  him  the  heir  of  two 
generations  of  murderers.  Never  say  your 
opponent  published  his  opinions,  say  that 
he  vomited  them.  You  can  hardly  go 
wrong  in  describing  anything  you  dislike 
as  ordure. 

With  foul  language  go  intimidation, 
obtuseness,  spiritlessness.  During  the 
trial  of  Zola  many  newspapers  headed 
their  issues  for  days  with  the  names  and 
addresses  of  the  jurors,  accompanied  by  suit- 
able instigations  to  violence.  During  the 
Rennes  Court-Martial  on  Dreyfus  an  in- 
genious little  paper  in  Rennes  ran  a  serial, 
giving  the  story  of  an  Alsatian  spy  in  1870, 
named  Deutschfus,  who  seduced  an  honest 
girl,  and  then,  returning  as  an  Uhlan,  shot 


304  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

her  and  kidnapped  her  child.  The  credulity 
of  such  newspapers  equals  their  violence, 
and  they  readily  gulp  down  the  wildest 
stories  and  clumsiest  forgeries.  And  when 
an  occasion  comes,  like  the  Fashoda  crisis, 
in  which  a  strong  lead  might  fitly  have 
been  given  to  the  nation,  nothing  was  forth- 
coming except  alternate  bluster  and  puling. 
With  one  breath  they  thundered  out  what 
things  they  would  do  if  they  could  ;  with  the 
next  they  wailed  for  compassion  because  they 
could  not  do  them.  They  inquired  into  the 
possible  cause  of  the  national  decadence  quite 
openly,  and  wound  up  with  "  Poor  France  !  " 
Poor  France  indeed !  Her  Government 
paralytic,  her  army  cankered,  her  press 
putrid — what  remains  to  her  ?  The  Church  ? 
The  Church  remains,  but  the  influence  of 
the  Catholic  leaders  and  the  Catholic  clergy 
in  the  cause  of  anti-Semitism  has  discredited 
her  among  all  fair-minded  men.  The  law  ? 
The  law  has  been  broken  and  mended  to 
order  for  the  advantage  or  the  disadvantage 
of  individuals ;  and  while  the  Cour  de 
Cassation  has  done  its  duty  most  honourably 
under  difficult  circumstances,  lesser  magis- 


FRANCE  AFTER  DREYFUS.   305 

trates  have  been  found  to  surrender  the  law 
to  partisanship  or  to  fear.  M.  Quesnay  de 
Beaurepaire  was  one  of  the  highest  judges 
in  France,  and  his  silly  spitefulness  has  made 
him  the  laughing-stock  of  the  world. 

Then  what  remains  ?  Why,  Rennes  !  The 
storm  of  party  bitterness,  folly,  weakness, 
knavery  has  swept  over  from  Paris  into  its 
own  Lycee ;  yet  Rennes  basks  unmoved 
under  its  sun.  Walk  down  the  drowsy 
streets.  Look  at  the  Breton  people  —  the 
shopkeepers,  the  blue  blouses,  the  little  lace 
caps  over  women's  faces  bronzed  with  field- 
work.  There  are  yet  people  in  France  who 
are  courteous  and  kindly,  simple  and  frugal 
and  brave,  who  earn  their  living,  and  love 
their  kin,  and  do  what  the  priest  tells  them, 
and  are  ready  to  die  for  France.  There  are 
millions  more  of  them  all  over  the  provinces. 
Paris  looks  down  upon  them,  and  the  whole 
world  outside  hardly  knows  of  them,  but  they 
are  the  strength  of  France.  It  is  theirs  to 
work  while  Paris  talks,  to  earn  what  Paris 
squanders,  to  heal  when  Paris  wounds. 

The  Dreyfus  case  is  the  deepest  cut  which 
Paris  has  scored  on  the  nation's  body  since 

x 


306  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  DREYFUS. 

1870,  perhaps  since  1789.     But    it   has  not 
reached  the   vitals,  and   the   provinces  may 
heal  it  as  they  have  done  again  and  again 
before.     The  recuperative  power  of  France 
has  ever  amazed  the  world,  merely  because 
the  world  has  thought  that    France  spelled 
only  Paris.     The  provinces  do  nothing  else 
but  recuperate. 

Only  that  process,  especially  with  a  dwind- 
ling population,  cannot  go  on  for  ever.  There 
will  come  in  the  end  a  day — and  sooner, 
perhaps,  than  we  think — when  Paris  will 
have  sucked  the  nation  dry,  and  the  provinces 
will  have  no  more  to  give.  A  nation  cannot 
go  on  when  the  bottom  is  rotten,  but  neither 
can  it  live  without  a  top.  And  there  will 
soon  be  no  top  ;  Paris  rots  it  as  soon  as  it 
begins  to  flower.  Presently  there  will  be 
nothing  left  but  Paris  and  peasants.  France 
will  still  be  France,  but  no  longer  a  great 
Power,  having  nobody  left  to  lead  her. 

And  in  some  ways  the  demand  which  these 
three  years  of  factious  frenzy  have  made  on 
France  is  more  exhausting  than  any  of  those 
from  which  she  has  recovered.  In  1815  and 

1871.  it  was  comparatively  easy  for  a  united 


FRANCE  AFTER  DREYFUS.   307 

people  to  revive  after  foreign  war.  After 
the  revolution,  when  the  whole  fabric  of 
society  was  swept  away,  there  was  a  great 
faith  wherewith  to  build  up  everything  anew  ; 
and  after  that  the  miracle  of  Napoleon.  In 
1899,  after  the  Dreyfus  case,  the  great  in- 
stitutions of  France  still  stand  ;  but  every- 
body knows  them  to  be  undermined.  There 
is  no  faith  ;  and  because  there  is  no  faith 
there  will  be  no  miracle. 


x  2 


& 


t,r 


A 


r  A#v£r  * 


M»~> 


FACSIMILE  OF  THE  BORDEREAU. 


309 


APPENDIX. 


INTRODUCTORY. 

To  help  the  reader  to  a  thorough  appre- 
ciation and  understanding  of  the  trial  at 
Rennes,  there  have  been  selected  from  the 
mass  of  reports,  depositions  and  incidents 
which  make  of  the  Affaire  Dreyfus  the  most 
confusing  and  complicated  case  on  record,  a 
few  significant  facts  round  which  all  the 
others  can  be  grouped,  and  which  are  the 
vital  and  suggestive  facts  at  the  bottom  of 
the  case.  They  are  presented  with  the 
explanatory  and  critical  remarks  of  the 
Judges  of  the  Court  of  Cassation,  as  recorded 
in  the  official  reports. 

Of  the  many  people  who  have  investigated 
the  case,  none  had  such  admirable  qualifica- 
tions as  the  members  of  the  highest  tribunal 
of  justice  of  France,  who  brought  to  this 


3io  APPENDIX. 

arduous  work  not  only  their  superior 
professional  equipment,  but  also  an  attitude 
absolutely  unbiassed  and  unprejudiced.  As 
supreme  guardians  of  justice,  as  patriotic 
Frenchmen,  they  never  for  a  moment  enter- 
tained the  barbarous  notion  that  the  honour 
of  the  French  army  made  the  punishment  of 
an  innocent  man  a  necessity. 


APPENDIX.  311 


SYNOPSIS    OF    THE    DREYFUS    CASE. 

1894. 

End  of  Sept. — The  bordereau  is  brought  to  the  Bureau  of 
Information  (the  Intelligence  Department  of  the  French 
War  Office  which  deals  with  all  matters  pertaining  to 
espionage). 

Oct.  1 3. — Bertillon  designates  Dreyfus  as  author  of  the  bordereau. 
(Another  expert,  Gobert,  had  refused  to  identify  the  two 
handwritings.) 

Oct.  15. — Du  Paty  de  Clam's  examination  of  Dreyfus,  and 
arrest  of  the  latter  at  close  of  the  famous  dictation  scene. 
Dreyfus  conducted  by  Henry  to  the  Gherche-Midi  prison, 
and  given  in  charge  of  Forzinetti,  governor  of  the  prison." ; 

Nov. — Investigation  by  the  Bureau  of  Information  into  the  life, 
etc.,  of  Dreyfus. 

Dec.  3. — Act  of  accusation  drawn  up  by  D'Ormescheville. 

Dec.  19. — Dreyfus  trial  begins  before  the  First  Court-Martial 
of  Paris.  As  soorr  as  the  witnesses  had  been  called  over, 
the  Commissary  of  the  Government  demanded  that  the 
case  be  heard  in  camera.  Maitre  Demange,  counsel  for  the 
accused,  opposed,  and  asked  to  be  allowed  to  argue  the 

point,  "  seeing  that  the  unique  piece  of  evidence "     He 

could  not  even  finish  his  sentence ;  the  President  interrupted 
him,  and  the  Commissary  of  the  Government  said  to  him 
that  there  were  other  interests  at  stake  than  those  merely 
of  the  accusation  and  defence.  The  case  was  therefore 
heard  in  camera. 

Dec.  22. — Dreyfus  is  unanimously  condemned  to  deportation 
and  perpetual  imprisonment  in  a  fortified  place. 

1895. 

Jan.  4. — Public  degradation  of  Dreyfus  in  the  courtyard  of  the 
£cole  Militaire. 

Feb.  9. — The  Chamber  of  Deputies  passes  a  special  law  deport- 
ing Dreyfus  to  French  Guiana,  and  he  is  conducted  to  La 
Rochelle,  the  He  de  Re,  and  thence  to  the  He  du  Diable. 


312  APPENDIX. 


1896. 

May. — Picquart,  appointed  Chief  of  the  Intelligence  Bureau, 
discovers  the  petit  bleu,  a  communication  written  by 
Schwarzkoppen,  the  German  Military  Attache,  and 
addressed  to  Esterhazy.  Later,  after  serious  investigations, 
Picquart  decides  on  the  guilt  of  Esterhazy,  and  the 
consequent  innocence  of  Dreyfus. 

July. — Picquart  reports  his  discoveries  to  Gen.  de  Boisdeffre. 

Sept. — Picquart  reports  his  discoveries  to  Gen.  Gonse,  and 
divulges  the  use  of  a  secret  document  at  the  trial. 

Sept.  14. — The  Eclair  publishes  the  secret  document  "  Ce 
canaille  de  D ."  (printing  it  Dreyfus  instead  of  D .) 

Oct.—  Publication  of  Bernard  Lazare's  first  brochure  "The 
Truth  about  the  Dreyfus  Affair." 

Nov.  10. — Publication  in  the  Matin  of  a  facsimile  of  the  bordereau. 

Nov.  1 6. — Picquart  sent  away  from  Paris  on  a  mission  to 
Tunis,  and  succeeded  by  Henry. 

Nov.  1 8. — Castelin's  interpellation  in  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  on 
the  publication  of  the  secret  documents  in  the  newspapers. 

End  of  Nov. — De  Castro,  a  banker,  recognises  Esterha/.y's 
handwriting  in  the  facsimile  of  the  bordereau  published  by 
the  Matin,  and  informs  the  Dreyfus  family  of  the  fact. 

1897. 

Jan. — Picquart  reaches  Tunis. 

June. — Beginning  of  the  open  warfare  against  Picquart  by 
Henry.  The  former  consults  his  friend  Leblois,  a  lawyer. 
Leblois  secures  the  support  of  Scheurer-Kestner,  Vice- 
President  of  the  Senate,  who  having  for  four  months  past 
investigated  the  affair  at  the  request  of  Bernard  Lazare, 
had  become  convinced  of  the  innocence  of  Dreyfus. 

July. — Scheurer-Kestner  declares  publicly  that  he  is  convinced 
of  the  innocence  of  Dreyfus. 

Sept.  28. — M.  Martini,  Comptroller  of  the  Army  and  friend  of 
General  Billot,  War  Minister,  asks  of  Dreyfus'  father-in- 
law,  M.  Hadamard,  what  elements  he  has  gathered  to 
prove  the  innocence  of  Dreyfus. 


APPENDIX.  313 

Oct.  1 6. — Last  known  interview  between  Esterhazy  and  Schwarz- 

koppen. 

Oct.  24. — Esterhazy  writes  a  threatening  letter  to  M.  Hadamard. 
Oct.  30. — Interview  between  Scheurer-Kestner  and  Billot,  the 

Minister  of  War. 
Nov.  10. — Picquart,  in  Tunis,  receives  false  telegrams  signed 

"  Blanche  "  and  "  Speranza." 
Nov.  14.— The   "  Veiled   Lady  "   presents   Esterhazy   with    a 

document  from  the  secret  dossier  of  the  Dreyfus  trial. 
Nov.  15. — Esterhazy  is   denounced    by   Mathieu    Dreyfus  as 

the  author  of  the  bordereau,  and  Esterhazy  demands  an 

investigation. 
Nov.  1 8. — Forzinetti  is  cashiered    for  declaring  to   Rochefort 

that  Dreyfus  is  innocent. 
Commandant  Pauffin  Saint-Morel  punished  with  thirty  days 

consigns  for  having  brought  to  Rochefort  the  "  flag  of  the 

General  Staff." 
Nov.  22. — Picquart's   rooms  are  searched   in  his  absence  by 

Henry  on  Gen.  de  Pellieux's  order. 
The  friends  of  Dreyfus  force  the  Minister  of  War  to  recall 

Picquart  from  Tunis,  that  he  may  be  heard  at  the  pro- 
ceedings opened  against  Esterhazy. 
Nov.  27. — Picquart  appears  before  Gen.  de  Pellieux,  who  is 

making  a  preliminary  investigation  against  Esterhazy. 
Nov.  28. — The  Figaro  publishes  Esterhazy 's  letters  to  Mme.  de 

Boulancy,  the  famous  Uhlan  letter  among  them. 
Dec.   4. — Interpellation  in  the   Chamber  of  Deputies  on  the 

Dreyfus  case.     Gen.  Billot  declares  Dreyfus  was  "justly 

and  legally  condemned." 
Dec.  7. — The  bordereau  is  included  in  the  Esterhazy  dossier  to 

be  examined  by  the  Court-Martial. 
Dec.  15  and  20. — The  false  documents  of  Lemercier-Picard  are 

offered  to  M.  Reinach,  who  refuses  them,  and  are  sold  to 

Rochefort,    who    published    them    as    coming   from    the 

"  department  of  the  Syndicate  of  treason  devoted  to  making 

up  false  documents." 

1898. 
Jan.  3. — Esterhazy  brought  before  the  Court-Martial. 


314  APPENDIX.   . 

Jan.  8. — Colonel  Picquart  testifies  to  the  two  false  documents 
signed  "  Speranza  "  and  "  Blanche,"  addressed  to  him  while 
he  was  in  Tunis. 

Jan.  10. — The   Esterhazy  Court- Martial  shows  its  animosity 

against  Colonel  Picquart. 
Esterhazy  is  exonerated  by  the  Ravary  report. 
General  de  Luxer,  presiding  officer,  accepts  as  perfectly  good 
all  the  explanations  of  the  accused. 

Jan.  ii. — Acquittal  of  Esterhazy,  who  leaves  the  prison  on  the 
arm  of  Mdlle.  Pays,  saluted  by  cries  of  "  Long  live  the 
Army  !  Down  with  the  Jews !  " 

Jan.  13. — Letter  from  Emile  Zola  to  the  President  of  the 
Republique,  published  by  the  Aurore  under  the  title  of 
"  T accuse." 

Colonel  Picquart  is  arrested  and  then  sent  to  the  fortress  ot 
Mont  Valerien. 

Jan.  1 7. — Letters  protesting  against  the  illegality  of  the  Dreyfus 
judgment  are  published  in  great  numbers. 

Jan.  1 8. — The  Minister  of  War  brings  suit  against  Zola  and 
the  Aurore. 

Jan.  20. — Zola  and  Perreux,  manager  of  the  Aurore,  are  sum- 
moned. Fifteen  lines  only  in  an  article  of  eight  columns 
are  mentioned  in  the  summons. 

Jan.  22. — Interpellation  by  M.  Cavaignac  in  the  Chamber  of 
Deputies.  M.  Meline,  the  Prime  Minister,  says,  "We 
have  thought  best  not  to  bring  before  a  jury  the  honour  of 
the  chiefs  of  the  army." 

Jan. — Declaration  by  M.  de  Bulow  in  the  Reichstag:  "  BETWEEN 
EX-CAPTAIN  DREYFUS  AND  NO  MATTER  WHICH  GER- 
MAN AGENTS,  THERE  HAVE  NEVER  EXISTED  ANY 
RELATIONS  OF  ANY  SORT." 

In  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  M.  Jaures  puts  this  ques- 
tion to  M.  Meline :  "  Yes  or  no ;  was  there  a  document 
communicated  to  the  Court- Martial  without  the  knowledge 
of  the  accused  ?  "  M.  Meline  refuses  to  reply. 

Feb.  7. — Zola  is  brought  before  the  Cour  d'Assises.  The 
officers  are  absent.  Gen.  Billot,  in  whose  name  the  com- 
plaint was  made,  is  not  there. 


APPENDIX.  315 

Beb.  9.  —  Judgment  of  the   Court,   commanding   the  military 

witnesses  to  come  to  the  trial. 

Feb.  10.  —  M.  Delegorgue,  President  of  the  Court,  declares: 
"  There  is  no  such  thing  as  a  Dreyfus  affair."  He  refuses 
to  put  the  questions  of  the  defence  to  the  witnesses. 
However,  Gen.  Mercier  does  not  dare  to  deny  that  a 
secret  document  was  shown  to  the  judges  of  Dreyfus. 
Feb.  12.  —  Deposition  of  Col.  Picquart. 

Deposition  of  M.  Jaures,  who  affirms  that  a  secret  document 
was  shown  to  the  judges  of  Dreyfus.  M.  Demange 
declares  that  so  far  as  the  trial  was  concerned,  he  knew  of 
nothing  but  the  bordereau,  but  a  colleague  told  him  that 
he  had  heard  from  a  judge  of  the  Court-  Martial  that  a 
secret  document  had  been  shown  to  the  judges  of  Dreyfus 
in  the  judges'  room. 
M.  Bertillon  is  heard,  and  his  system  considered. 

Feb.  14  —  Three  French  experts,  Paul  Meyer,  director,  Auguste 
Molinier,  and  Emile  Molinier,  professors  at  the  Ecole  des 
Chartres,  declare  that  the  bordereau  is  the  work  of 
Esterhazy.  The  fourth  expert,  Louis  Havet,  professor  at 
the  Sorbonne,  comes  to  the  same  conclusion. 

Feb.  17.  —  General  de  Pellieux  speaks  of  the  secret  document 
(the  forged  Henry  document.) 

Feb.  1  8.  —  Colonel  Picquart  declares  that  that  secret  document 
is  a  forgery.  Examination  of  Esterhazy.  He  is  silent 
before  the  accusations  brought  by  Maitre  Albert  Clemen- 
ceau,  one  of  the  counsel  for  the  defence. 

Feb.  20,  22,  23.  —  Maitre  Labori  pleads  for  Zola,  Maitre 
Clemenceau  pleads  for  the  Aurore. 

Feb.  23.  —  Condemnation  of  Zola  (one  year  in  prison  and  3000 
francs  fine). 

Feb.  25.  —  MM.  Grimaux,  Leblois,  Picquart  and  Chapelin  are 
cashiered  for  having  expressed  doubts  of  the  guilt  of 
Dreyfus. 

End  of  Feb.  —  The  greater  part  of  the  European  Press  sides  with 


March  5.  —  Death  of  Lemercier-Picard,  spy  and  forger.     His 

identity  is  concealed  for  three  days  by  the  police. 
March  30.—  Appeal  of  Zola  and  of  the  Aurore. 


316  APPENDIX. 

April  i. — Gen.  Billot  declares  to  M.  Mazeau,  President  of  the 

Court  of  Cassation,  that  he  will  not  be  responsible  for 

troubles  in  the  street  if  the  Zola  verdict  is  revised. 
April  2. — The  Zola  verdict  is  annulled. 
The  Court- Martial  not  having  brought  a  complaint  against 

Zola  and  the  Aurore,  M.  Meline,  interpellated  by  M.  Habert, 

promises  to  prosecute  again  and  at  once. 
April  7. — Letter  to  the  Sieele,  signed    "  Diplomats"  accuses 

Esterhazy  of  having  been  in  the  employ  of  Col.  Schwarz- 

koppen.     Esterhazy  does  not  prosecute  the  Sieele. 
April  8. — The  Court- Martial  brings  complaint  against  Zola  and 

the  Aurore.     In  the  Sieele  is  published  the  deposition  of 

M.  Casella,  declaring  that  Esterhazy  is  the  author  of  the 

bordereau,  and  quoting   MM.    Panizzardi  and    Schwarz- 

koppen  as  his  authorities. 
April  ii. — Zola  and  the  Aurore  are  re-summoned.     It  is  now  a 

question  of  but  three  lines   in  the  same  article  of  eight 

columns. 
April  1 2  &  1 5. — Esterhazy  does  not  prosecute  either  the  Sieele 

or  the    newspapers   which   reprinted    the  accusation   of 

M.  Casella. 
May  15. — It  is  said  that  the  General  Staff  possess  a  photograph 

of  Col.  Picquart  in  conversation  with  Col.  Schwarzkoppen. 

The  Jour  affirms  the  existence  of  this  photograph,  but  being 

summoned  to   produce   it,  the  photograph  is  not  to  be 

found. 
May  23. — Zola  prosecuted  at  Versailles. 

The  theory  of  the  incompetency  of  the  Court  is  rejected. 
May  23. — Bands  of  loafers  follow  and  hoot  Zola  and  Picquart. 
Esterhazy  surrounded  with  officers  and  journalists,  who  are 

grasping  his  hands,  declares  that  he  is  come  for  the  purpose 

of  killing  Picquart. 
The  letters  to  Madame  de  Boulancy,  after  legal  investigation, 

are  declared  to  be  authentic. 
June  14. — Downfall  of  the  Meline  Ministry. 
June  1 6. — Rejection  of  Zola's  appeal. 

June  1 8  &  22. — Ministerial  crisis  caused  by  the  Dreyfus  affair. 
June  24. — Mr.  Conybeare,  Professor  at  the  University  of  Oxford, 

writes  M.  Reinach:  "Colonel  de  Schwarzkoppen  will  not 


APPENDIX.  317 

deny  that  he  paid   2000  francs  monthly  to  his  habitual 

informer,  Ester  hazy." 
Esterhazy  does  not  prosecute  the  newspapers  which  print  the 

accusation  of  Professor  Conybeare. 
June  27. — M.  Charles  Dupuy,  Prime  Minister,  declares  that 

the  report  of  M.  Lebrun-Renault  dates  from  1897  and  not 

from  1894,  the  time  when  it  should  have  been  made. 
June  28. — M.  Brisson  accepts   M.  Cavaignac  as   Minister  of 

War,  imposed  by  the  Libre  Parole  and  the  Intransigeant, 

the  anti-Drey fusist  newspapers. 
M.  Cavaignac  is  selected  by  these  journals  because  of  his 

attitude  in  the  Dreyfus  affair. 

July  5. — The  Aurore  publishes  a  letter  from  Esterhazy  contain- 
ing the  expression  of  the  bordereau,  "  I  am  about  to  leave 

for  the  manoeuvres."     This  letter  proves :    First,   that, 

contrary  to  what  he  says,  Esterhazy  went  to  the  manoeuvres 

in  1894;  and  second,  that  the  wording  of  this  phrase  was 

usual  with  the  Major. 
July  8. — Speech  of  M.  Cavaignac  at  the  Chamber.     He  reads 

the  forged  Henry  document,  and  bases  his  conviction  of 

Dreyfus's  guilt  largely  upon  it. 
July  9. — Letter  from  Colonel  Picquart  to  M.  Brisson  offering 

to  prove  to  him  that  the  document  read  by  Cavaignac  at 

the  Chamber  is  a  forged  document. 
July  13. — Colonel  Picquart  is  arrested  and  prosecuted  for  the 

facts  brought  forward  against  him  in  February. 
Arrest  of  Esterhazy  and  Mdlle.  Pays,  accused  of  fabricating 

the  false  documents  "  Speranza  "  and  "  Blanche." 
July  1 8. — New  trial  of  Zola  at  Versailles. 

Condemnation  by  default  of  Zola  and  Perreux,  one  year  in 

prison  and  3000  francs  fine. 
Maitre  Ployer,  counsel  for  the  prosecution,  says  that  "  Zola 

in  spite  of  a  freedom  of  defence  without  parallel  in  judicial 

annals,  did  not  attempt  even  to  demonstrate  his  innocence  "  ! 
July  19. — Departure  of  Zola  from  France. 
july  23. — Complaint  of  Colonel  Picquart  against  Colonel  Du 

Paty  de  Clam. 

Zola  is  stricken  from  the  rolls  of  the  Legion  of  Honour. 
July  28.— The  Chamber  of  Correctional   Appeal    condemns 


318  APPENDIX. 

Zola  and  Perreux,  manager  of  the  Aurore,  to  one  month  in 

prison  and  3000  francs  fine  for  libel  against  the  experts 

Couard,  Belhomme,  and  Varinard,  whom  he  accuses  in  his 

letter  of  lying  or  imbecility.     Each  of  the  experts  obtains 

5000  francs  damages. 
July  30. — M.   Bertulus  declares  Colonel  Du  Paty  de   Clam, 

Esterhazy,  and  Mdlle.  Pays  authors  and  accomplices  in  the 

matter  of  the  false  documents  "  Blanche  "  and  "  Speranza." 
Aug.  6. — The  Chambre  d'Accusation  saves  Du  Paty  de  Clam  by 

declaring  M.  Bertulus  has  no  right  to  investigate  in  the 

matter  of  the  forged  Du  Paty  de  Clam   and  Esterhazy 

documents. 

Aug.  13. — Esterhazy  is  set  at  liberty. 
Aug.  26. — Colonel  Picquart  and  M.  Leblois  are  sent  before  the 

police  court. 
Aug.  30. — Arrest  of  Colonel  Henry,  who  acknowledges  being 

the  forger  of  the  document  Cavaignac  quoted  in  his  speech 

of  July  8. 
Aug.  31. — Resignation  of  General  de  Boisdeffre. 

Suicide  of  Colonel  Henry. 
Sept.  i. — The  Cour  de   Cassation  declares  that  the  Chambre 

d'Accusation  has  exonerated  Colonel  Du  Paty  de  Clam  by 

refusing  to  apply  the  existing  law. 
Sept.  3. — Resignation  of  M.  Cavaignac. 
Sept.  5. — Letter  from  Madame  Dreyfus  to  the  Minister  of 

Justice,  demanding  the  revision  of  the  judgment  against 

Dreyfus. 

Sept.  6. — General  Zurlinden  assumes  the  portfolio  of  war. 
Sept.  13. — Colonel  Du  Paty  de  Clam  is  placed  on  the  retired 

list  for  his  part  in  the  affair  Esterhazy. 
Nov.  1 7. — Revision  is  practically  decided  upon. 
Nov.  20. — M.  Paul  Bernard,  President,  informs  Maitre  Labori 

that  the  8th  Chamber  will  adjourn  the  Leblois-Picquart 

trial,  and  will  release  Colonel  Picquart  provisionally. 
Nov.  21. — The  Leblois-Picquart  trial  is  postponed  until  after 

the  Revision.     The  Military  Governor  of  Paris  removes 

Colonel  Picquart  from  the  civil  prison  of  La  Saute  and 

places  him  secretly  in  the  military  prison  of  the  Cherche- 

Midi. 


APPENDIX.  319 

Nov.  25. — General  Chanoine,  Minister  of  War,  resigns. 

Nov.  26. — The  Counsel  of  Ministers  refers  to  the  Cour  de 

Cassation  the  question  of  the  legality  of  a  revision  of  the 

Dreyfus  case. 

Nov.  28. — The  Cour  de  Cassation  begins  the  work  of  revision. 
Nov. — Dreyfus  is  informed  of  the  pending  revision  just  one 

year  after  his  brother's  denunciation  of  Esterhazy. 
December. — The  Criminal  Chamber  of  the  Cour  de  Cassation 

orders  the  adjournment  of  the  Picquart  trial ;  examines  the 

secret  dossier  brought  by  Captain  Cuignet  on  behalf  of 

the  Minister  of  War,  hears  the  depositions  of  MM.  Lebrun- 

Renault,  Casimir-Perier,  etc. 


January.— -M.  Quesnay  de  Beaurepaire,  President  of  the  Civil 
Chamber  of  the  Cour  de  Cassation,  resigns,  and  is  replaced 
by  Conseiller  Ballot-Beaupre. 
Jan.    27. — Prosecution   of    M.   Joseph   Reinach   by    Madame 

Henry  for  defamation  of  her  husband's  memory. 
Feb. — M.   Renault-Moliere,   Recorder  of  the   Commission  of 
Procedure  in  the  matter  of  the  revision  in  the  Criminal 
Chamber,  gives  a  favourable  report. 

The  Criminal  Chamber,  after  having  heard  further  evidence, 
orders,  through  M.  Loew,  its  President,  the  closing  of  the 
preliminary  inquest  for  a  revision  of  the  Dreyfus  case. 
The  Senate  discusses  a  law  for  taking  the  case  out  of  the 

hands  of  the  Criminal  Chamber. 

March. — The  Senate  decides  that  all  Chambers  of  the  Cour  de 
Cassation  are  to  unite  and  pronounce  upon  the  demand 
for  revision. 

M.  Ballot-Beaupre  is  designated  as  Recorder. 
The  full  bench  of  Cour  de  Cassation  takes  up  the  investiga- 
tion of  the  secret  dossier. 

April. — The  Figaro  publishes  all  the  reports  of  the  investigation 
of  the  Cour  de  Cassation,  and  being  prosecuted  is  con- 
demned to  500  francs  fine. 

The  Court  hears  the  depositions  of  Capt.  Chamoin  and 
M.  Paleologue,  and  of  MM.  Lepine,  Freystaetter,  Ber- 
tillon,  Gonse,  and  Roget,  as  well  as  that  of  Du  Paty  de 


320  APPENDIX. 

Clam.     Capt.  Freystaetter,  one  of  the  judges  of  the  Court 

Martial  of  1894,  declares  that  nothing  but  the  bordereau 

was  communicated  during  the  trial,  proving  that  it  was  in 

the  jury  room  after  the  audience  that  the  secret  document 

was  communicated. 

May. — M.  Ballot- Beaupre  makes  his  report. 
June  3. — The  revision  of  the  Dreyfus  case  is  voted  by  the  Cour 

de  Cassation.     The  case  is  referred  to  the  Rennes  Court 

Martial. 
June  6. — Capt.  Dreyfus  leaves  Guiana  for  France  on  the  cruiser 

Sfax. 

June  12. — The  Dupuy  Cabinet  resigns. 
June  22. — New  Cabinet  formed  with  General  de  Galliffet  as 

Minister  of  War. 

July  i. — Captain  Dreyfus  arrives  at  Quiberon. 
Aug.  7. — The   Court-Martial    on    Capt.    Dreyfus    begins  at 

Rennes. 
Sept.  9. — Capt.  Dreyfus  recondemned  by  a  majority  of  five  to 

two,  with  extenuating  circumstances. 


APPENDIX.  321 


THE  ACT  OF  ACCUSATION,  1894. 
Report  of  Commandant  A.  cT  Ormescheville. 

COMMANDANT  D'ORMESCHEVILLE,  RAPPORTEUR  OF  THE 
FIRST  COURT  MARTIAL,  HAVING  PROCEEDED  TO 
REGULAR  INSTRUCTION,  MADE  THE  FOLLOWING 
REPORT,  WHICH  is  THE  ACT  OF  ACCUSATION. 

December  3,  1894. 

Captain  Dreyfus,  of  the  i4th  Artillery,  stagtaire  to  the  staff- 
major  of  the  army,  is  accused  of  having,  in  1894,  given  informa- 
tion to  several  agents  of  foreign  Powers,  with  the  object  of 
giving  them  the  means  of  committing  hostilities  or  undertaking 
a  war  against  France,  and  of  having  delivered  to  them  secret 
documents  on  which  was  based  the  order  given  by  M.  General 
Military  Governor  of  Paris,  Nov.  3,  1894. 

Dreyfus  is  accused  of  having,  in  1894,  nad  dealings  with 
several  agents  of  foreign  Powers,  giving  them  information  which 
would  enable  them  to  commit  hostilities  or  undertake  a  war 
with  France. 

The  basis  of  the  accusation  against  Dreyfus  is  a  letter,  not 
signed  and  not  dated,  which  is  in  the  dossier,  proving  that  these 
military  confidential  documents  were  delivered  to  an  agent  of  a 
foreign  Power. 

General  Gonse,  sub-chief  of  the  staff-major  general  of  the 
army,  into  whose  hands  the  documents  fell,  gave  them,  after  their 
seizure,  October  1 5th,  to  Du  Paty  de  Clam,  Chief  of  the  Battalion 
of  Infantry  hors  cadre,  ordered  October  i4th,  1894,  by  the 
Minister  of  War,  as  officer  of  the  police  judiciary,  to  institute 
proceedings  against  Captain  Dreyfus. 

From  the  seizure  of  this  letter,  General  Gonse  has  declared 
and  affirmed  to  the  officer  of  police  commissioned  to  investi- 
gate, that  he  had  some  documents  addressed  to  a  foreign  Power, 
which  had  come  into  his  possession,  but  that  after  the  formal 
order  of  the  Minister  of  War  he  could  not  state  by  what 
means  the  documents  had  come  into  his  possession. 

The  exact  details  of  the  inquiry  which  took  place  in  the 


322  APPENDIX. 

offices  of  the  staff-major  of  the  army  are  found  contained  in  the 
report  which  Du  Paty  de  Clam  addressed  to  the  Minister  of 
War,  October  31  last,  and  which  was  a  part  of  the  dossier.  An 
examination  of  this  report  shows  that  it  was  done  without  any 
haste  and  especially  without  any  person  having  signed  it  a 
priori,  and  it  is  on  this  the  inquiry  has  been  conducted. 

This  inquiry  is  divided  into  two  parts,  one  preliminary 
inquiry  in  order  to  arrive  at  the  discovery  of  the  culprit,  if 
possible,  then  the  regulation  inquiry  by  the  officer  of  police. 

The  very  nature  of  the  documents  addressed  to  the  agent  of 
a  foreign  Power  at  the  same  time  with  the  criminal  letter, 
established  the  fact  that  it  was  an  officer  who  was  the  author  of 
the  letter  and  who  had  sent  it  and  the  documents ;  moreover, 
that  this  officer  belonged  to  the  artillery,  three  of  the  notes  or 
documents  sent  concerning  this  branch  of  the  army.  After  a 
careful  examination  of  all  the  handwriting  of  the  officers  em- 
ployed in  the  offices  of  the  staff-major,  it  was  decided  that  the 
writing  of  Dreyfus  presented  a  remarkable  similarity  to  that  of 
the  criminal  letter.  The  Minister  of  War,  upon  the  report 
which  was  made  to  him,  ordered  that  the  writing  of  the  letter 
should  be  studied  and  compared  with  the  writing  of  Dreyfus. 
M.  Gobert,  expert  of  the  Bank  of  France  and  of  the  Court  of 
Appeal,  was  commissioned  by  General  Gonse  to  make  the 
examination,  and  for  this  purpose  received  some  documents, 
October  4th,  1894.  Some  days  after  the  receipt  of  these  docu- 
ments M.  Gobert  asked  M.  Gonse,  who  went  to  see  him,  the 
name  of  the  guilty  person  ;  naturally  the  latter  refused  to  give  it 
to  him. 

A  few  days  afterwards  M.  Gobert  was  asked  to  submit  his 
conclusions  and  the  documents  which  had  been  confided  to 
him,  he  having  shown  his  desire  for  more  time  in  the  matter. 

October  i3th,  in  the  morning,  M.  Gobert  submitted  his 
conclusions  in  the  form  of  a  letter  to  the  Minister.  They  are 
worded  as  follows : — 

"  The  criminal  letter  might  be  that  of  another  person  than 
the  one  suspected." 

M.  Gobert's  manner  having  displayed  a  certain  defiance,  the 
Minister  of  War  asked  the  Prefect  of  Police  for  the  opinion 
of  M.  Bertillon. 


APPENDIX.  323 

Some  specimens  of  writing  and  a  photograph  of  the  criminal 
letter  were  then  submitted  to  him,  and  he  proceeded  to  their 
examination  while  awaiting  the  return  of  the  documents  con- 
fided to  M.  Gobert.  After  the  return  of  these  documents 
by  M.  Gobert,  they  were  sent  to  M.  Bertillon,  who,  on  the 
evening  of  October  i3th,  drew  up  his  conclusions,  which  are 
worded  as  follows : — "  If  one  goes  on  the  hypothesis  that 
the  document  is  forged,  it  appears  manifest  that  it  is  the 
same  person  who  has  written  the  letter  and  the  documents  in 
question." 

In  compliance  with  the  order  of  the  Minister  of  War,  dated 
October  i4th,  1894,  Du  Pa*v  de  Clam  proceeded  to  the  arrest 
of  Captain  Dreyfus  on  October  i5th. 

Before  the  actual  arrest,  and  in  order  that  Dreyfus  might 
know  the  accusation  against  him,  and  prove  his  innocence  if 
possible,  Du  Paty  de  Clam  submitted  him  to  the  following 
test : — He  made  him  write  a  letter  in  which  were  enumerated 
the  documents  figuring  in  the  criminal  letter. 

As  soon  as  Dreyfus  perceived  the  object  of  this  letter,  his 
writing,  which  was  up  to  that  point  regular,  became  irregular, 
and  he  showed  signs  of  uneasiness.  Questioned  about  this, 
he  declared  that  his  fingers  were  cold.  Now  the  temperature 
in  the  office  of  the  Minister  was  medium;  Dreyfus  had  been 
there  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  and  the  first  four  lines  written 
presented  no  signs  of  trembling. 

After  having  arrested  and  interrogated  Dreyfus,  Du  Paty  de 
Clam,  the  same  day,  Oct.  15,  made  a  search  in  Dreyfus'  house. 
This  superior  officer  having  heard  no  witness,  the  duty  fell 
upon  us,  and  by  reason  of  the  necessary  secrecy,  the  inquiry 
in  which  we  heard  twenty-three  witnesses  was  as  laborious  as 
it  was  delicate. 

It  appears,  from  the  testimony  of  witnesses,  that  during  the 
two  years  that  Dreyfus  spent  as  stagiaire  to  the  General  Staff, 
he  was  seen  in  different  offices,  that  his  actions  were  suspicious, 
that  he  was  found  alone  at  late  hours  in  other  offices  than  his 
own  and  where  there  was  no  excuse  for  his  presence.  In  this 
way  he  was  able  to  look  up  matters  which  might  interest  him. 
He  was  also  able,  without  being  seen  by  anyone,  to  go  into 
offices  other  than  his  for  the  same  motive.  It  was  remarked 

y  2 


324  APPENDIX. 

by  the  Chief  of  the  section  that  during  his  stay  in  the  4th 
Bureau  Dreyfus  was  specially  interested  in  the  study  of  dossiers 
of  mobilization,  so  that  in  leaving  this  bureau  he  possessed  all 
the  mysteries  of  the  concentration  upon  the  network  of  the 
East  in  time  of  war. 

The  examination,  as  well  as  the  conclusions  formed  on  the 
subject  of  the  criminal  letter,  belong  more  particularly  to  the 
experts  in  writing.  However,  at  first  sight,  and  afterwards,  we 
must  say  that  the  writing  of  this  document  presents  a  great 
similarity  to  the  different  documents  found  in  the  dossier,  notably 
in  the  slanting  of  the  writing,  the  omission  of  dates  and  the 
cutting  of  words  in  two  at  the  end  of  lines,  which  are  the 
features  of  the  letters  written  by  Dreyfus  (see  his  letter  to  the 
Procureur  of  the  Republic  of  Versailles  and  the  letters  or  cards 
to  his  fancee  which  are  in  the  dossier).  In  regard  to  the 
signature  the  comparison  fails  because  it  ought  to  fail.  Colonel 
Fabre,  chief  of  the  4th  Bureau  of  the  staff-major  of  the  army, 
in  his  deposition  said  that  he  had  been  struck  by  the  similarity 
of  the  writing  of  the  criminal  documents  and  the  writing  of 
Dreyfus  when  he  was  in  Bureau  No.  4. 

Lieutenant-Colonel  d'Aboville,  sub-chief  of  the  same  bureau, 
said  in  his  deposition  that  the  resemblance  of  the  writing  of  the 
criminal  documents  to  the  writing  of  the  documents  of  compari- 
son was  very  striking. 

As  regards  the  experts  who  reported  to  us  the  first  phase 
of  the  inquiry,  that  is  to  say  in  the  commencement  of  the 
month  of  October  last,  we  find  first  the  hurried  letter  of  M. 
Gobert,  which  is  very  vague.  The  wording  of  the  conclusion 
of  this  expert  shows  that  the  anonymous  letter  that  he  examined 
could  be  or  might  not  be  from  the  person  accused.  It  is  to  be 
observed  that  M.  Gobert  received,  among  the  documents  for 
comparison  written  by  the  hands  of  Dreyfus,  a  work  entitled 
''Studies  upon  measures  in  times  of  war."  This  document, 
which  contains  a  detailed  expose  of  the  resources  of  the  Bank 
of  France,  in  case  of  war,  attracted  the  attention  of  M.  Gobert, 
who  is  employed  by  the  Bank  of  France,  and  is  to-day  an  expert 
on  writing  there. 

Captain  Dreyfus  having  had,  in  the  course  of  his  work,  to 
consult  the  principal  officers  of  that  bank,  he  was  quite  well 


APPENDIX.  325 

known  by  a  number  of  its  employes.  It  was  without  doubt 
his  fact  which  led  M.  Gobert  to  tell  us  that  he  had  surmised 
he  name  of  the  person  suspected,  but  that  no  one  had  any 
knowledge  of  it.  Be  that  as  it  may,  M.  Gobert,  as  we 
have  said,  for  some  unknown  reason  had  asked  General  Gonse, 
sub-chief  of  the  General  Staff,  the  name  of  the  guilty  person. 
What  reason  had  he  for  doing  so  ?  Many  hypotheses  can  be 
advanced.  We  can  say  that  such  a  demand,  in  contradiction 
to  the  professional  attitude  of  an  expert  in  handwriting, 
warrants  the  supposition  that  the  account  rendered  by 
M.  Gobert  to  the  Minister  (which,  not  being  certified  under 
oath,  was  merely  in  the  way  of  information)  was  written  under 
the  influence  of  bias,  contrary  to  the  invariable  practice  of 
professional  experts  in  such  matters. 

In  consequence,  this  account  seems  to  us  suspicious,  to  say 
the  least.  Its  dubiousness  of  tone  has  no  value  from  the  stand- 
point of  law.  It  does  not  contain  any  technical  discussion  which 
would  allow  one  to  understand  on  what  facts  M.  Gobert  has 
based  his  judgment. 

We  will  add  that  M.  Gobert,  when  asked  to  add  technical 
explanation  to  his  report,  refused ;  that  moreover,  before  taking 
the  oath,  he  declared  to  us  that  if  we  should  call  him  in  view  of 
making  a  second  expert  investigation,  a  regular  one  this  time, 
in  the  Dreyfus  affair,  he  would  refuse  to  do  so. 

As  we  have  said  before,  the  task  of  examination  given  to  M. 
Gobert  by  the  Minister  of  War  was  also  entrusted  to  M. 
Bertillon,  who  formulated,  October  isth,  1894,  his  conclusion 
as  follows  : — 

"If  one  puts  aside  the  hypothesis  of  a  forged  document  with 
the  greatest  care,  it  appears  manifest  that  it  is  one  and  the  same 
person  who  has  written  the  letter  and  the  documents  in 
question." 

In  his  report  of  October  23rd,  given  after  a  more  thorough 
examination,  bearing  upon  a  larger  number  of  documents, 
M.  Bertillon  formulated  the  following  conclusions,  which  are 
much  more  affirmative.  "The  proof  is  peremptory.  You 
know  what  my  conviction  was  in  the  first  place,  it  is  now 
absolute — complete  without  any  limitation." 

The  report  of   M.  Charavay,  expert  in  writing  near  the 


326 


APPENDIX. 


Tribunal  of  the  Seine,  given  under  oath,  contains,  first  of  all,  a 
detailed  technical  discussion,  and  the  conclusions  which 
resulted  from  it  are  given  in  the  following  words—"  Based  on 
the  statements  made  in  the  present  report,  I,  the  undersigned 
expert,  conclude  that  the  criminal  document  No.  i  is  written 
by  the  same  hand  as  the  test  documents  from  2  to  30." 

The  report  of  M.  Teyssonieres,  expert  in  handwriting  near 
the  Civil  Tribunal,  given  under  oath,  contains,  like  the 
preceding  report,  a  detailed  technical  discussion  of  the 
documents.  His  conclusions  are  thus :  "  Based  on  the  pre- 
ceding, I  declare  on  my  conscience  that  the  writing  of  the 
criminal  piece  No.  i  is  by  the  same  hand  which  has  written 
documents  2  to  30." 

The  report  of  M.  Pelletier,  expert,  &c.,  given  under  oath, 
and  which  bore  upon  the  comparison  of  the  handwriting  cf  the 
criminal  documents  with  that  of  two  persons,  contains,  like 
the  preceding  reports,  a  technical  discussion  of  the  documents 
examined.  His  conclusions  are  as  follows : — "  Summing  up  the 
whole  thing,  I  do  not  consider  myself  warranted  in  attributing 
to  either  one  or  the  other  of  the  persons  suspected  the  writing 
of  the  criminal  documents." 

It  is  worthy  of  note  that  the  experts  Gharavay,  Teysson- 
nieres  and  Pelletier,  after  taking  the  oath,  were  put  in  relation 
with  M.  Bertillon,  who  told  them  that  he  was  at  their  disposal 
to  furnish  them  with  certain  pelures,  the  photographs  of  which 
were  not  as  yet  finished,  and  which  were  of  great  importance  by 
reason  of  the  comparisons  to  be  made  of  the  handwritings.  Of 
tie  three  experts  above  named,  only  two  returned  to  see  M. 
Bertillon  and  receive  from  him  communication  of  these  pelures ; 
these  two  were  Charavay  and  Teyssonieres. 

The  third,  M.  Pelletier,  did  not  go  again,  and  did  his  work, 
which  bore  upon  the  comparison  of  two  handwritings  instead 
of  one  with  the  criminal  letter,  without  the  help  of  the  docu- 
ments that  M.  Bertillon  proposed  to  give  him,  and  which  must 
have  had  decidedly  as  much  interest  for  him  as  for  his  col- 
leagues. 

Dreyfus  was  subjected  to  a  long  interrogatory  by  M.  Du  Paty 
de  Clam.  His  answers  are  full  of  contradictions,  to  say  the 
least.  Among  them  some  are  particularly  interesting  to  note 


APPENDIX.  327 


here,  notably  one  at  the  time  of  his  arrest,  October  isth  last, 
when  he  was  searched  and  said  :  "  Take  my  keys  ;  open  every- 
thing in  my  house,  you  will  find  nothing." 

The  search  which  was  made  at  his  house  resulted  very 
nearly  as  he  said  ;  but  one  is  justified  in  thinking  that  if  any 
letters,  even  of  the  family,  except  those  written  to  Madame 
Dreyfus  —  if  even  letters  from  shopkeepers  had  contained  any- 
thing compromising  they  would  naturally  have  been  destroyed. 
The  whole  of  the  interrogatory  put  by  M.  Du  Paty  de  Clam  is 
full  of  persistent  denials  by  Dreyfus,  and  also  of  protestations 
against  th^.  crime  of  which  he  is  accused.  At  the  beginning  of 
that  interrogatory  Dreyfus  said  at  first  that  he  thought  he 
recognised  in  the  criminal  documents  the  handwriting  of  an 
officer  employed  in  the  office  of  the  General  Staff  of  the  Army  ; 
afterwards,  before  us,  he  retracted  this  allegation,  which  ought 
to  fall  by  its  own  weight,  in  the  face  of  the  complete  dissimilarity 
of  the  handwriting  of  the  officer  he  had  in  mind  with  that  of 
the  criminal  document. 

Another  extraordinary  answer  made  in  the  course  of  the  first 
interrogatory  is  that  which  related  to  the  insecurity  of  the 
official  documents  which,  according  to  Dreyfus,  were  not  in 
perfect  security  at  the  second  Bureau  of  the  General  Staff  of 
the  Army  at  the  time  when  he  was  employed  in  it.  This 
allegation  of  insecurity  has  not  been  confirmed  by  any  of  the 
witnesses  heard  on  this  subject  ;  he  must  therefore  have  made 
it  with  some  object  in  view. 

Lastly,  there  exists,  in  the  first  interrogatory,  some  absolutely 
incoherent  answers,  such  as  these  :  "  The  experts  are  mistaken, 
the  incriminating  document  is  the  work  of  a  forger  ;  some  one 
has  tried  to  imitate  my  handwriting.  These  documents  might 
have  been  written  with  the  help  of  fragments  of  my  handwriting 
put  together  with  care  to  form  a  whole  which  would  resemble 
this  letter.  The  ensemble  of  the  letter  does  not  resemble  my 
writing  ;  it  is  not  even  an  attempt  to  imitate  it." 

In  the  interrogatory  of  Dreyfus,  his  answers  have  always 
been  obtained  with  great  difficulty,  as  one  will  observe  from 
the  many  words  scratched  and  underlined  in  the  official 
report  of  the  interrogatory.  When  Dreyfus  ventured  an 
affirmation,  he  would  hasten  to  weaken  it  by  vague  or  mixed-up 


328  APPENDIX. 

phrases,  trying  always,  in  spite  of  former  remarks,  to  question 
or  to  start  the  conversation  without  being  asked  to  do  so. 
That  system,  if  we  had  allowed  it  to  be  adopted,  might  have 
.had  some  unfortunate  consequences  for  the  form  even  of  the 
1  nterrogatory,  on  account  of  the  extreme  cleverness  of  Captain 
Dreyfus. 

If  one  compares  the  answers  that  Captain  Dreyfus  has  made 
to  us  with  the  depositions  of  some  of  the  witnesses  heard,  they 
will  draw  from  it  the  painful  impression  that  he  often  veils  the 
truth,  and  that,  whenever  he  finds  himself  hard  pressed,  he  gets 
out  of  the  trouble  without  much  difficulty,  owing  to  his  mental 
alertness. 

Summing  up  the  depositions  of  several  witnesses,  the  facts 
extracted  are  these:  that  Dreyfus  had  often  drawn  upon  him- 
self the  suspicion  of  his  comrades,  that  he  had  asked  Captain 
Boullenger  questions  about  the  secret  and  confidential  affair  in 
his  charge,  which  Boullenger  refused  to  answer ;  also  that 
Captain  Bosse  had  seen  him,  September  8th  last,  working  in  his 
office  on  some  unauthorized  kind  of  paper  instead  of  using  the 
same  official  papers  as  the  document  which  he  had  to  bring  up 
to  date ;  also  Captain  Maistre  said  to  him  that  he  would  give 
him  communication  of  the  important  work  which  he  had  in 
charge,  but  in  his  office  only.  It  appears  that  Dreyfus  indulged 
in  indiscreet  conversations,  that  he  made  investigations  of 
matters  not  in  his  own  department ;  that  he  had  a  habit  of 
ferreting ;  that  he  seemed  to  be  bent  on  procuring  information, 
either  written  or  oral,  before  finishing  his  term  of  service  as 
stagiaire  with  the  General  Staff  of  the  Army. 

His  attitude  seemed  to  be  one  of  cross-purposes,  and  had  a 
suspicious  appearance,  like  that  of  one  who  practices  spying. 
His  actions,  taken  in  connection  with  the  similarity  of  the 
handwriting,  were  a  serious  factor  against  him  when  the  question 

of  his  arraignment  was  brought  up. 

******* 

Although  Dreyfus  declared  to  us  that  he  never  had  gambling 
propensities,  it  appears  from  the  information  we  have  been  able 
to  gather  on  the  subject  that  he  frequented  several  Paris  clubs 
where  there  is  much  gambling.  In  the  course  of  his  interrogatory 
he  acknowledged  that  he  had  gone  to  the  Press  Club,  but  only 


APPENDIX.  329 

as  a  guest  to  dine,  and  that  he  had  never  played  there.  The 
gambling  clubs  of  Paris,  such  as  the  Washington  Club,  the 
Betting  Club,  the  Fencing  Club,  and  the  Press  Club,  have  no 
Club  books,  and  their  frequenters,  being  a  shady  class  of  people, 
the  testimony  of  any  witnesses  we  might  have  called  from  there 

would  not  have  been  trustworthy  ;  hence  they  were  not  heard. 

******* 

In  regard  to  his  travels,  Dreyfus  stated  that  he  could  go  to 
Alsace  in  secret  almost  whenever  he  wanted  to,  and  that  the 
German  authorities  would  shut  their  eyes  to  his  presence.  This 
faculty  of  travelling  clandestinely  contrasts  strongly  with  the 
difficulties  which  our  officers  experienced  at  that  time,  and  at  all 
times,  in  obtaining  permission  or  passports  from  the  German 
authorities  allowing  them  to  return  to  Alsace.  It  may  be  there 
was  a  reason  for  this  which  the  limited  time  at  our  disposal  will 
not  admit  of  our  fathoming. 

In  regard  to  the  hints  of  Dreyfus  about  the  baiting  which 
the  Minister  of  War  practised,  it  appears  to  us  that  this  accusa- 
tion was  trumped  up  by  Dreyfus  in  order  to  defend  himself  for 
having  any  connection  with  compromising  documents,  and 
perhaps  this  loophole  of  escape  in  his  mind  made  him  less 
careful  about  disguising  his  handwriting. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  slight  alterations  which  he  did  make 
might  have  had  for  an  object  the  possible  argument  of  forgery, 
should  the  documents  after  having  reached  their  destination 
eventually  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  Minister  of  War. 

As  to  the  proofs  relating  to  the  knowledge  Captain  Dreyfus 
had  of  the  notes  or  documents  enumerated  in  the  criminal 
documents  and  which  have  accompanied  it,  the  first  interroga- 
tory, as  well  as  the  one  he  has  just  been  submitted  to,  convinces 
me,  in  spite  of  his  denials,  that  he  was  in  easy  position  to  furnish 
them.  On  examining  these  documents,  we  find  first  of  all  the 
note  upon  the  hydraulic  brake  120. 

The  allegations  of  Dreyfus  on  the  subject  of  this  brake  go  to 
show  that  it  was  easy  for  him  to  procure,  either  through  the 
artillery,  or  by  conversations  with  certain  officers  of  the  General 
Staff,  the  elements  necessary  to  fabricate  the  note  in  question. 

As  to  the  note  upon  the  troupes  de  cou-verture  with  the 
restriction  that  some  modifications  might  be  brought  in  by  the 


330  APPENDIX. 

new  plan,  to  us  it  seems  impossible  that  Dreyfus  did  not 
have  knowledge  of  the  modifications  bearing  on  the  plan  of 
campaign  in  the  month  of  April  last,  which,  though  confidential, 
was  not  altogether  secret,  being  freely  discussed  by  officers  of 
the  staff  both  among  themselves  and  in  the  presence  of  Dreyfus. 

In  that  which  concerns  the  note  upon  certain  changes  in  the 
artillery  staff,  an  agitation  for  the  suppression  of  the  pontonniers, 
we  cannot  believe  that  Dreyfus  was  not  interested  in  such  a 
transformation,  and  only  knew  of  it  when  it  became  official. 
About  the  note  on  Madagascar,  which  presented  the  greatest 
interest  for  one  of  the  foreign  Powers,  if,  as  everything  suggested, 
an  expedition  had  been  sent  at  the  beginning  of  1895,  Captain 
Dreyfus  would  have  easily  been  able  to  procure  the  official  note. 
In  fact,  last  February  Corporal  Bernillon,  then  Secretary  to 
Colonel  de  Sancy,  chief  of  the  second  Bureau  of  the  General 
Staff,  made  a  copy  of  a  work  of  about  twenty-two  pages  on 
Madagascar  in  an  antechamber  adjoining  the  office  of  this 
superior  officer. 

The  making  of  that  copy  took  about  five  days,  and  during 
that  time  original  and  copy  were  left  in  a  portfolio  on  the 
writing  table  of  the  corporal  when  he  left  his  work.  Besides, 
during  office  hours  this  corporal  was  often  absent  for  a  while, 
leaving  his  work  in  full  view  on  the  table  (consequently  easy  to 
read),  for  he  never  thought  that  any  officer  not  belonging  to  that 
office,  or  in  fact  any  officer  unknown  to  him,  would  be  in  the 
room. 

This  corporal  declared  to  us  in  his  deposition,  but  without 
giving  any  precise  date,  that  Captain  Dreyfus,  whom  he  knew, 
had  come  four  or  five  times  into  the  room  to  see  Colonel  de 
Sancy,  while  he  was  doing  service  at  the  German  section.  This 
document  could  also  have  been  read  by  Dreyfus  when  he  was 
put  back  to  the  English  section,  which  was  occupied  just  then 
with  Madagascar,  because  these  documents  had  been  placed 
temporarily  in  an  open  pasteboard  box  in  that  section.  In  what 
concerns  the  project  of  the  Manuel  de  tir  of  artillery  on 
March  14,  1894,  Dreyfus  acknowledged,  in  his  first  interroga- 
tory, that  he  had  spoken  of  it  several  times  with  the  superior 
officer  of  the  2nd  Bureau  of  the  General  Staff. 

In  conclusion,  the  elements  of  the  accusation  against  Dreyfus 


APPENDIX.  331 


are  of  two  kinds,  moral  and  material.  I  have  examined  the 
first  element;  the  second  element  consists  in  the  criminal 
letter  whose  examination  by  the  majority  of  experts,  as  well  as 
by  us,  and  by  the  witnesses  who  have  seen  it,  has  proved,  in 
spite  of  voluntary  dissimilarities,  a  complete  similarity  with 
the  writing  of  Dreyfus. 

Besides  the  preceding,  I  can  say  that  Dreyfus  possesses  a 
very  extended  knowledge,  a  remarkable  memory ;  that  he 
speaks  several  languages,  notably  German,  which  he  knows 
thoroughly,  and  Italian,  which  he  pretends  to  know  very  little 
about  now;  that  he  has  a  supple  character,  even  obsequious, 
which  is  very  useful  in  the  relation  of  a  spy  with  foreign  agents. 
Captain  Dreyfus  was  therefore  well  fitted  for  the  shameful 
mission  that  he  had  mapped  out  for  himself  or  accepted,  but 
which,  happily  for  France,  was  put  an  end  to  by  the  discovery 
of  the  criminal  letter. 

In  consequence,  I  am  of  opinion  that  Captain  Dreyfus, 
Stagiaire,  etc.,  be  arraigned  tor  having,  in  1894,  at  Paris, 
delivered  to  a  foreign  Power  a  certain  nnmber  of  confidential 
documents  relating  to  national  defence,  thus  enabling  them  to 
undertake  a  war  with  France. 

A.  D'ORMESCHEVILLE. 

Made  at  Paris,  December  3,  1894.  Reporter. 


ANALYSIS  OF  THE  ACT  OF  ACCUSATION  AND 
OF  THE  ALLEGED   CONFESSION. 

[Report  of  Conseiller  Bard,  Court  of  Cassation, 
October  27th,  1898.] 

Besides  the  experts,  the  reporter,  d'Ormescheville, 
heard  twenty  military  witnesses  and — we  note  in 
passing,  because  this  detail,  contrary  to  judicial 
customs,  has  its  interest — that  not  one  of  these 
witnesses  was  confronted  with  the  accused,  that  not 
once  was  the  accused  in  the  presence  of  those 


332  APPENDIX. 

who    accused    him,  and    permitted    to   make   any 
explanations  to  them. 

Moreover,  the  twenty  military  witnesses  cited 
were  not  all  witnesses  for  the  prosecution  ;  several 
of  them  testified  only  to  entirely  indifferent  facts 
or  upon  the  character  of  the  accused.  As  for 
those  whom  the  prosecution  considered  regular 
witnesses,  they  indicated  that  Dreyfus  liked  to 
inform  himself  on  military  matters  which  were 
outside  of  his  duties,  and  that  he  could  get  into  the 
offices  where  he  was  not  summoned  ;  but  not  one 
of  them  brought  out  any  fact  that  could  fix  upon 
him  the  crime  of  high  treason. 

As  to  the  motive  which  could  have  influenced 
the  accused  to  commit  a  crime  so  abominable,  the 
report  gives  no  explanation.  The  accused  had  a 
comfortable  fortune  ;  it  is  true  that  this  is  not  a 
proof  of  incorruptibility,  but  he  led  a  life  in  keeping 
with  his  resources.  The  reporter,  therefore,  looked 
for  gambling,  women  or  deceived  ambition  as  the 
cause ;  what  he  found,  supposing  it  to  be  fully 
established,  constitutes  information  of  morality  ; 
the  reporter  was  not  able  to  see  anything  else. 

If  Dreyfus  complained  of  unjust  prejudice  against 
him,  he  nevertheless  graduated  from  the  War 
School  ninth  out  of  forty-two,  with  the  note  "  Very 
good,"  his  brevet  of  Etat-Major,  and  his  admission 
to  the  General  Staff. 

As  for  the  two  women  he  knew  in  1893  and 
1894,  it  is  found  that  there  were  only  some  visits 
or  interviews,  to  which  Dreyfus  himself  put  an  end. 


APPENDIX.  333 

As  for  gambling,  the  report,  without  affirming 
that  Dreyfus  lost,  or  even  played,  says  that  "  it 
appears  from  information  gathered  "  that  he 
frequented  circles  where  there  was  gambling. 

This  information  is  represented  in  two  notes, 
that  cannot  even  be  called  police  notes,  for  nothing 
indicates  their  origin  ;  they  are  not  even  signed  by 
any  agent  whatever,  and  they  are  not  indorsed  by 
any  testimony,  which  is  perhaps  improper,  when  it 
relates  to  the  honour  of  an  officer,  if  he  is  accused 
of  the  greatest  of  crimes.  No  accusation  of  gambling 
was  brought  at  the  Rennes  trial. 

However  that  may  be,  the  motive  of  this 
monstrous  crime  remains  mysterious,  like  the  cir- 
cumstances of  its  perpetration  ;  one  thing  alone 
accuses  Dreyfus,  and  that  is  the  bordereau. 

To  declare  that  Dreyfus  wrote  the  bordereau, 
M.  d'Ormescheville  cites  his  personal  criticism  ; 
but  in  stating,  with  other  persons,  that  there  is 
a  similarity  of  handwriting  between  the  incrimi- 
nating letter  and  the  handwriting  of  Dreyfus, 
he  adds  that  "the  examination  as  well  as  the 
conclusions  to  be  formed  on  this  subject  belong 
more  particularly  to  experts  on  handwriting,"  and 
at  the  end  of  his  report  he  recalls  that  "  the  majority 
of  the  experts"  have  pronounced  against  the 
accused.  The  opinion  of  the  experts,  therefore, 
gave  decisive  weight  in  the  Dreyfus  affair  (as  well  as 
in  the  Esterhazy  affair).  Now  as  the  contradictory 
and  irreconcilable  results  of  these  experts  consti- 
tute one  of  the  reasons  for  revision,  it  will  be  in 


334  APPENDIX. 

order  to  make  them  known  together  with  sufficient 
details. 

In  this  stage  of  the  procedure,  after  the  report  of 
Commandant  d'Ormescheville,  dated  December  3rd, 
Commandant  Brisset,  Commissary  of  the  Govern- 
ment, makes  a  report  tending  to  the  appearance 
of  the  accused  before  the  Council  of  War, 
December  4th,  and  the  same  day,  General  Saussier, 
Governor  of  Paris,  signed  the  order  that  Captain 
Dreyfus  should  be  tried  by  court-martial. 

All  the  witnesses  who  were  heard  in  the  instruc- 
tion, as  well  as  Commandant  Du  Paty  de  Clam, 
were  cited  before  the  court-martial,  including  the 
experts  who  were  engaged  in  the  affair.  A  dozen 
witnesses,  of  whom  half  belonged  to  the  army, 
were  also  summoned  at  the  request  of  the  accused. 
The  entire  debate  took  place  with  "  huis  clos  "  the 
most  rigorous  ;  it  continued  four  days,  and  Decem- 
ber 28th  the  accused  was  unanimously  declared 
guilty  and  condemned  to  transportation  to  a 
fortified  enclosure. 

Notwithstanding  the  protestations  of  the  con- 
demned, protestations  which  were  unknown  to 
the  public,  the  sentence  against  Dreyfus  did 
not  raise  any  indignation  and  could  not  raise  any 
observation,  except  the  regret  that  a  crime  like 
this  should  rank  in  the  category  of  political  crimes 
with  a  penalty  like  that  of  transportation  which, 
applied  according  to  law,  must  guarantee  political 
prisoners  against  the  excessive  hardships  of  peni- 
tentiary r/gime  established  for  common  law 


APPENDIX.  335 

criminals.  The  attention  of  the  public  authorities 
was  even,  and  very  justly,  called  to  the  opportunity 
of  revising  from  this  point  of  view  the  legal  rulings 
governing  spies. 

No  other  incident  occurred  during  the  year  1895 
and  the  first  months  of  1896.  But,  before  passing 
to  the  Esterhazy  affair,  and  to  follow  events  in 
their  chronological  order,  we  must  inform  the 
Court,  as  far  as  is  in  our  power,  on  the  allegation 
that  after  the  degradation  of  Alfred  Dreyfus,  he 
made  confessions  to  Captain  Lebrun-Renault. 

Not  that  those  who  have  experience  ir» 
judicial  matters  can  attach  great  importance  to  the 
incident  which  occurred. 

In  certain  circumstances,  words  which  would 
seem  an  explicit  and  formal  avowal  do  not  for  the 
judge  constitute  an  irrevocable  proof.  You  had  a 
recent  example  in  the  Esterhazy  affair,  when  the 
woman  Pays  having  acknowledged  before  the 
judge  that  she  was  the  author  of  a  telegram,  this 
was  found  to  be  false,  and  the  Court  decided  that 
this  declaration,  revoked  later,  must  not  be  retained 
against  the  accused. 

It  is  generally  required  that  an  avowal  shall  be 
produced  before  a  judge,  or  at  least  before  a  legal 
•police  officer ;  that  it  shall  be  precise,  and  not  the 
result  of  equivocal  expressions  ;  that  it  shall  agree 
with  information  already  obtained  ;  all  these  cir- 
cumstances are  found  to  be  very  incomplete  in  this 
instance. 

Nevertheless,  we  are   obliged   to   consider  this 


336  APPENDIX. 

question,  as  a  dossier  has  been  communicated  to 
us,  which  contains  two  reports  and  the  speech  of 
the  Minister  of  War,  Cavaignac,  at  the  session  of 
the  Chamber  of  Deputies,  July  7th,  1898. 

One  of  the  reports  is  by  Captain  Tassin,  of 
September  7th  last.  Contrary  to  the  indication  of 
the  dossier,  there  is  no  question  of  avowals  made 
by  Captain  Dreyfus. 

The  second  report  must  be  read.  We  do  not 
know  if  it  was  considered  convincing.  We  fear 
that  it  confirms  the  doubts  and  thickens  the 
Obscurities  that  surround  this  incident. 


REPORT  OF  LIEUTENANT-COLONEL  GUERIN,  SOUS-CHEF  OF 
THE  ETAT-MAJOR  OF  THE  MILITARY  GOVERNMENT 
OF  PARIS,  ON  THE  DEGRADATION,  JANUARY  5, 
1895,  AND  ON  THE  DECLARATIONS  MADE  BY  EX- 
CAPTAIN  DREYFUS  TO  CAPTAIN  LEBRUN-RENAULT, 
OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  GUARD. 

After  having  been  placed,  January  5,  1895,  by  the  Military 
Government  of  Paris,  at  the  disposition  of  General  Darras,  to 
assist  at  the  military  degradation  of  Captain  Dreyfus,  I  went 
that  day  at  quarter  past  five  in  the  morning  to  the  Military 
School,  cour  Morland.  Captain  ....  was  ordered  to  verify 
the  cards  of  representatives  of  the  French  Press,  reserve  and 
territorial  officers,  and  to  place  them  in  the  order  which  was 
arranged  for  them. 

The  prison  van,  escorted  by  a  squad  of  the  Republican 
Guard  commanded  by  Captain  Lebrun-Renault,  entered  the 
Military  School  at  forty-five  minutes  past  seven,  and  was 
stopped  at  the  cour  Morland,  before  the  office  of  the  adjutant 
of  the  garrison.  Dreyfus  stepped  out  and  was  conducted  to 
this  office  and  remained  there  until  the  moment  when  all  the 
troops  being  in  position,  the  captain  of  the  garrison  came,  about 


APPENDIX.  337 

five  minutes  before  nine  o'clock,  to  conduct  him  at  nine  o'clock 
to  the  place  marked  for  the  ceremony. 

Meeting  Captain  Lebrun-Renault  at  the  entrance  of  the 
office,  he  at  once  told  me  of  his  interview  with  Captain  Dreyfus. 
At  the  first  words,  as  it  did  not  seem  to  me  advisable  that  this 
should  be  limited  to  us  two,  and  a  group  of  officers  being  near 
us,  I  begged  Captain  Lebrun-Renault  to  relate  to  them  the 
confidences  that  Dreyfus  had  made  to  him,  on  account  of  their 
importance  and  interest. 

This  officer  then  told  us  that  he  had  talked  of  Tahiti  with 
Dreyfus,  the  place  where  he  would  probably  be  sent.  He 
boasted  that  the  climate  would  suit  him  very  well  and  also  his 
wife  and  children.  Captain  Dreyfus,  showing  him  the  braid 
on  his  dolman,  told  him  that  it  was  pride  he  had  lost.  He 
added  this  declaration,  "  If  I  delivered  these  documents,  they 
were  without  any  value,  and  it  was  in  order  to  procure  more 
important  ones." 

I  guarantee  the  strict  exactitude  of  the  words  underlined 
(they  are  all  underlined),  and  the  real  meaning  of  these  words, 
which  are  too  characteristic  to  be  ever  forgotten  by  me. 

The  first  stroke  of  nine  sounded;  Dreyfus  was  degraded. 
He  protested  his  innocence,  passed  before  the  front  rank  of 
troops,  and  stepped  into  the  prison  van  which  was  waiting  for 
him.  It  left  at  once,  and  Dreyfus  was  placed  under  civil 
authority. 

I  went  without  delay  to  the  office  of  the  adjutant  of  the 
garrison  when  the  parade  was  finished,  and  took  part  in  the 
passing  of  the  troops  before  General  D  arras.  After  the 
departure  of  the  last  troop,  I  left  the  Military  School  myself, 
and  went  to  give  a  verbal  account  of  the  incidents  of  the  morning 
to  the  military  governor  of  Paris,  as  well  as  of  the  declarations 
made  by  the  condemned  to  Captain  Lebrun-Renault. 

In  the  evening,  about  half-past  six,  Commandant  Picquart, 
who  had  been  present  at  the  degradation,  came  to  my  office,  Rue 
Cambon,  to  ask  me  for  information  in  regard  to  the  confidences 
of  Dreyfus  to  the  captain  of  the  Republican  Guard  who  had 
escorted  him  in  the  morning.  I  did  not  even  know  his  name, 
and  did  not  learn  it  until  the  next  morning.  He  asked  me  if 
Dreyfus  had  indicated  the  nature  of  the  documents  he  had 


338  APPENDIX. 

delivered.  I  could  not  give  him  anything  precise  on  the  subject, 
and  I  proposed  to  him  to  have  Captain  Lebrun-Renault  come  to 
my  office  either  the  next  morning  or  the  morning  after,  the  next 
morning  being  Sunday.  We  left  the  Rue  Gambon  together ; 
Commandant  Picquart  took  me  in  his  carriage  as  far  as  the 
Cours  la  Reine,  where  I  left  him,  and  he  went  to  the  Ministry. 

The  convocation  was,  furthermore,  useless  :  General  Gonse, 
sub-chief  of  the  Etat-Major,  came  on  January  6  to  the  Etat- 
Major  to  ask  Captain  Lebrun-Renault's  address,  went  to 
find  him,  took  him  to  the  Ministry,  which  received  his 
declarations. 

(Signed)      LIEUTENANT-COLONEL   GUERIN. 

Paris,  February  14,  1898. 

Copy  certified  September  16,   1898. 

What  date  is  this  report  ?  You  have  noticed, 
gentlemen,  it  is  February  I4th,  1898.  The  degra- 
dation took  place  January  5th,  1895.  Why  did 
Lieutenant-Colonel  Guerin  prepare  this  report 
three  years  after?  Evidently  because,  at  that 
time,  it  was  desired  to  get  together  all  the  reports 
that  were  in  circulation  on  the  incident  which  the 
Chamber  of  Deputies  was  just  discussing.  But,  as 
the  Minister  of  War,  Cavaignac,  very  justly  said, 
preference  should  be  given  to  the  earlier  testimony. 
Now,  between  what  was  reported  as  being  the  declar- 
ation of  Captain  Lebrun-Renault,  made  at  the  time 
of  the  degradation,  and  the  vague  remembrances  of 
Colonel  Guerin,  there  is  a  profound  difference. 
According  to  the  version  attributed  the  next 
morning  to  Captain  Lebrun  -  Renault,  Dreyfus 
should  have  said,  "The  Minister  knows  that  I 
am  innocent,  he  sent  me  word  to  that  effect  by 
Commandant  Du  Paty  de  Clam,  in  my. prison, 


APPENDIX.  339 

three  or  four  days  ago.  The  Minister  knows  very 
well  that  if  I  delivered  documents,  they  were  with- 
out value,  and  that  it  was  in  order  to  procure 
more  important  ones."  Of  these  protestations  of 
innocence,  of  the  intervention  of  the  Minister  con- 
vinced of  this  innocence,  there  is  no  longer  any 
trace  in  the  report  of  Colonel  Guerin. 

Two  explanations  are  possible  :  Either  Captain 
Lebrun-Renault,  who  should,  it  would  seem,  have 
reserved  for  his  chiefs  so  grave  a  confidence,  spoke 
a  little  carelessly  before  his  comrades  who  were 
anxious  to  fathom  the  state  of  mind  of  the 
condemned  ;  or  Captain  Lebrun  -  Renault  gave 
his  comrades  the  same  version  which  he  was 
to  furnish  the  next  day,  and  it  is  then  that  it 
was  realised  how  the  truth  can  be  perverted  in 

passing  from  mouth  to  mouth Our  great 

fabulist  has  written  a  charming  apologue  upon  this, 
and  although  it  applies  to  women,  men  and  even 
soldiers  may  profit  by  it.  We  have  not  the 
slightest  doubt  that  within  a  few  weeks  it  was 
considered  as  an  averred  fact  among  those  who  were 
not  thoroughly  acquainted  with  the  state  of  affairs, 
that  Dreyfus  had  made  avowals ;  it  was  such  a 
relief  to  know  that  no  mistake  had  been  made  ! 

The  same  reservation  should  be  made  about 
the  testimony  of  Captain  d'Attel  cited  before 
the  Chamber. 

Captain  Lebrun-Renault,  it  has  been  said,  is  not 
the  only  witness  who  received  confessions  from 
Dreyfus  ;  another  officer,  Captain  d'Attel,  also 

z   2 


34°  APPENDIX. 

received  them,  and  transmitted  them  immediately 
to  officers  who  testify  thereupon.  Captain  d'Attel 
died  a  short  time  after  under  rather  tragical 
circumstances.  But  we  have  the  declarations  of 
officers  who  received  the  assertions  furnished  by 
him.  Here  are  these  declarations  : — 

Captain  Anthoine  has  the  honour  to  state  that,  the  day  of 
the  degradation  of  Dreyfus,  he  met,  in  coming  out  of  the  room 
where  Dreyfus  had  been  locked  up,  Captain  d'Attel,  his  friend, 
who  had  been  on  duty,  belonging  to  the  staff  of  the  place. 

D'Attel  told  Captain  Anthoine  that  Dreyfus  had  just  said 
before  him  .-  "  For  what  I  have  given  up,  it  was  not  worth  the 
trouble.  If  they  had  left  me  alone,  I  would  have  had  more  in 
exchange." 

Captain  Anthoine  immediately  repeated  this  to  Commander 
de  Mitry. 

Here  is  another  declaration  : — 

'  Commander  de  Mitry  has  the  honour  to  bear  witness  .  .  . 
Captain  Anthoine  repeated  to  him  the  conversation  which  he 
had  just  had  with  Captain  d'Attel,  of  the  staff,  since  deceased. 
Captain  Anthoine  told  him  substantially  that  Dreyfus  had 
made  remarks  in  presence  of  d'Attel,  from  which  it  resulted 
that  if  Dreyfus  gave  up  documents,  he  did  so  with  the  view  of 
obtaining  some  in  exchange  for  them. 

M.  Cavaignac,  whose  principle  it  is  that  prefer- 
ence must  be  given  to  the  testimonies  of  the  very 
day,  does  not  indicate  the  date  of  these  testimonies  ; 
but  as  they  have  only  been  occasioned  by  the  death 
of  Captain  d'Attel,  it  is  to  be  inferred  that  these 
contributions  to  the  inquiry  are  very  tardy,  like 
those  of  Lieut.-Col.  Guerin,  and  you  have  had 
opportunity  to  remark  that  we  arrive  at  the 
attestations  of  the  third  degree,  Commander  de 


APPENDIX.  341 

Mitry  declaring  that  Captain  Anthoine  has  told 
him  that  Captain  d'Attel  had  reported  to  him  a 
certain  remark  made  by  Dreyfus.  .  .  .  How  is  it 
that  Captain  d'Attel  himself,  who  has  played  an 
official  part  in  this  dismal  ceremony,  was  not 
examined  at  the  opportune  moment  and  by  whom 
it  may  concern  ? 

It  is  upon  these  elements,  the  fragility  of  which 
need  not  be  demonstrated,  that  the  following 
conclusion  has  been  arrived  at. 

"  Either  men's  testimony  will  never  more  have  any  value,  or 
else  it  results  from  these  precise  and  harmonious  testimonies 
that  Dreyfus  has  pronounced  this  sentence:  '  If  I  have  given  up 
these  documents,'  etc. 

"  Well,  I  weigh  these  words  in  my  conscience.  These 
avowals  are  denied  ;  it  will  perhaps  be  said  to-morrow  that  they 
were  wrenched  by  threats  and  by  promises ;  no  matter  what 
people  may  have  imagined  to  have  been  the  motive,  I  declare 
upon  my  conscience  that  I  cannot  admit  that  a  man  can  have 
pronounced  these  words :  '  If  I  have  given  up  these  documents 
.  .  .  .  '  if  he  has  not  really  given  them  up." — M.  Cavaignac's 
Speech  at  the  Chamber  of  Deputies,  July  7,  1898. 

Is  this  conclusion  justified?  We  will  prove  to 
you,  by  M.  Cavaignac's  own  speech,  that  upon 
this  point  the  Minister  deviates  quite  involuntarily 
from  the  text  attributed  to  Captain  Lebrun- 
Renault ;  but  one  may  go  further,  one  may  think 
that  the  text,  supposing  it  to  be  exact,  would 
not  authorise  the  conclusion  drawn  from  it  by 
the  orator.  If  Dreyfus  had  admitted  that  he  was 
guilty  of  letting  himself  be  allured,  it  does  not 
follow  that  he  would  have  admitted  he  was  a 


342  APPENDIX. 

traitor  and  the  author  of  the  bordereau.  It  would, 
on  the  contrary,  have  been  a  defence  against  the 
accusation  of  espionage.  Suppose  that  this  defence 
had  been  produced  before  a  court-martial,  and  that 
it  had  been  admitted  to  be  well  founded  ?  Would 
Dreyfus  have  been  declared  guilty  of  treason  ? 
Evidently  not. 

However,  we  will  not  dwell  any  longer  on  this 
way  of  looking  upon  the  matter,  for  the  true  text 
(we  mean  that  which  would  have  been  produced 
the  day  after  the  degradation)  excludes  far  more 
powerfully  still  the  interpretation  which  has  seemed 
so  legitimate  to  the  Minister  of  War.  It  is  to  him- 
self that  we  apply  for  the  text. 

These  words  having  been  published,  Captain  Lebrun- 
Renault,  one  of  the  officers  of  whom  I  have  spoken,  was 
ordered  to  appear  at  the  Ministry  of  War,  and  there,  before  the 
Minister  of  War,  he  related  what  he  had  heard.  He  had  been 
conducted  to  the  Ministry  of  War  by  General  Gonse,  who 
remained  during  the  conversation,  and  who,  on  the  6th  of 
January,  1895,  wrote  to  General  de  Boisdeffre,  who  was  away, 
the  letter  which  I  will  read. 

"  I  hasten  to  tell  you  that  I  have  myself  conducted  Captain 
Lebrun-Renault  of  the  Garde  Republicaine  before  the  Minister, 
who,  after  having  heard  him,  sent  him  to  the  President.  In  a 
general  way,  Captain  Lebrun-Renault's  conversation  with 
Dreyfus  was  chiefly  a  monologue  of  the  latter,  who  contradicted 
and  corrected  himself  incessantly.  The  following  were  the 
prominent  features : — 

"  '  Upon  the  whole,  no  original  documents  have  been  given  up, 
but  merely  copies.'  Coming  from  an  individual  who  always 
declares  that  he  knows  nothing,  this  phrase,  to  say  the  least, 
was  a  singular  one.  Then,  protesting  that  he  is  not  guilty,  he 
ended  by  saying :  '  The  Minister  knows  that  I  am  innocent,  he 
has  sent  Commander  Du  Paty  de  Clam  to  tell  me  so  in  prison, 


APPENDIX.  343 

three  or  four  days  ago,  and  he  knows  that  if  I  have  given  up 
documents,  they  are  documents  of  no  importance,  and  that  I 
gave  them  up  in  order  to  obtain  more  serious  ones.' 

"  The  Captain  concluded  by  expressing  the  opinion  that 
Dreyfus  made  partial  avowals  or  began  an  avowal  mingled  with 
reticences  and  falsehoods." 

I  resume  M.  Cavaignac's  speech  : — 

Captain  Lebrun-Renault  himself  inscribed  the  same  day, 
January  6th,  upon  a  leaf  taken  from  his  memorandum  book,  the 
following  note,  which  is  still  in  his  hands : — 

"  Yesterday,  degradation  of  Captain  Dreyfus.  Having  been 
requested  to  take  him  from  the  prison  of  the  Cherche-Midi  to 
the  Military  School,  I  remained  with  him  from  8  till  9  o'clock. 
He  was  very  dejected ;  asserted  that  within  three  years  his 
innocence  would  be  recognised.  At  about  half-past  8,  without 
my  asking  him,  he  told  me  :  '  The  Minister  knows  very  well 
that  if  I  gave  up  documents  they  were  of  no  value,  and  that  I 
did  it  to  procure  myself  more  important  ones.'  He  requested 
me  to  give  orders  to  the  adjutant  charged  to  degrade  him,  .to 
accomplish  this  mission  as  speedily  as  possible." 

From  this  document,  the  only  contemporary 
document  presented,  it  results  that  Dreyfus  never 
ceased  to  protest  that  he  was  innocent ;  that  he 
asserted  that  the  Minister  knew  that  he  was 
innocent,  and  that  he  gave  as  a  proof  thereof  that 
the  Minister  knew  very  well  that  if  he  had  given 
up  documents,  these  documents  were  of  no  import- 
ance, and  that  it  was  done  with  the  view  to  obtain 
serious  ones.  Now,  five  days  before  the  convict 
had  addressed  to  his  counsel,  Me.  Demange,  the 
following  note,  which  clearly  explains  these  words : 

Commander  Du  Paty  came  to-day,  sist  of  December,  1894, 
at  half  past  five  in  the  evening,  after  the  rejection  of  the  appeal, 


344  APPENDIX. 

to  ask  me,  on  behalf  of  the  Minister,  if  I  had  not  perhaps  been 
victim  of  my  own  imprudence,  if  I  had  not  simply  been  wanting 
to  decoy,  and  if  afterwards  I  had  not  let  myself  be  drawn  into  a 
fatal  succession  of  circumstances.  I  answered  him  that  I  had 
never  had  any  connection  with  any  agent  or  attache  of  any 
foreign  Power,  that  I  had  never  tried  to  inveigle  anyone,  that  I 
was  innocent.  After  Commander  Du  Paty's  departure  I  wrote 
the  following  letter  to  the  Minister  : 

"  In  conformity  with  your  order  I  have  received  the  visit  of 
Commander  Du  Paty  de  Clam,  to  whom  I  have  again  declared 
that  I  was  innocent,  that  I  had  never  even  committed  an  im- 
prudence. I  am  condemned.  I  have  no  favour  to  ask  except 
that  for  the  sake  of  my  honour,  which  I  hope  will  be  restored  to 
me  some  day,  once  I  am  gone,  unceasing  inquiries  be  made; 
this  is  the  only  favour  I  ask." 

This  is  what  took  place  the  day  of  the  degrada- 
tion. The  convict  said  : 

The  Minister  knows  that  I  am  innocent,  he  has  sent  some- 
body to  tell  me  so ;  he  knows  that  if  I  have  given  up  documents 
without  importance,  it  was  to  obtain  some  serious  ones ;  that  is 
to  say,  he  knows  that  at  all  events  I  am  not  a  traitor,  and  he 
lets  me  suffer. 

The  Ministerial  version  haunted  the  mind  of  the 
convict  and  he  invoked  it  as  a  supreme  protestation. 

It  is  superfluous  to  point  out  how  the  slightest 
variation  might  accentuate  the  sense  of  the  phrase. 
Put :  "  The  Minister  has  sent  someone  to  tell  me 
that  if  I  have  given  up  documents  .  .  .  ."  or  "  The 
Minister  believes  that  if  I  have  given  up  documents 
.  .  .  ."  or  again  :  "  The  Minister  knows  that  if  I 
had  given  up  documents  .  .  .  .",  and  there  no  more 
remains  the  slightest  room  for  a  discussion.  It 
was  therefore  very  important  to  make  an  official, 


APPENDIX.  345 

or,  at  least,  an  ordinary  report,  such  as  all  officers 
of  the  police  charged  with  a  mission  are  in  the 
habit  of  furnishing,  of  the  expressions  used  by  the 
convict ;  to  verify  them  by  questioning  the  convict — 
in  short,  to  make  an  inquiry,  since  these  expressions 
appeared  to  throw  a  new  light  upon  the  affair.  It 
was,  perhaps,  an  occasion  to  appoint  a  competent 
functionary  for  the  purpose  of  making  an  inquiry. 
Nothing  of  the  kind  was  done. 

General  Gonse,  in  his  letter  to  the  Chief  of  the 
Court-Martial  General,  confines  himself  to  giving 
the  impressions  of  Captain  Lebrun  -  Renault. 
"  Captain  Lebrun-Renault  has  concluded,"  he  says, 
"by  expressing  the  opinion  that  Dreyfus  made 
avowals  or  commencements  of  avowals  mingled 
with  reticences  and  falsehoods." 

If  Dreyfus  had  control  enough  over  himself  to 
envelop  his  avowals  with  reticences  and  falsehoods, 
it  is  hard  to  understand  how  he  could  have  divulged 
a  compromising  secret  to  an  officer  of  the  police 
who  only  remained  with  him  an  instant,  when  he 
had  resisted  without  failing  during  the  examination 
with  which  you  are  acquainted,  and  again  when 
proclaiming  his  innocence  while  going  through  the 
torture  of  being  degraded,  and  when  he  knew  he 
would  have  to  continue  to  proclaim  his  innocence 
indefinitely  without  growing  weak  or  tired. 

It  seems  that  such  was  at  that  time  the  belief 
of  the  Government,  and  if  the  question  itself  has 
not  been  thoroughly  investigated,  it  is  because  it 
was  thought  that  it  was  of  no  importance. 


346 


APPENDIX. 


NOTES  FROM  CAPTAIN  DREYFUS  TO  HIS  WIFE 
ON  THE  DAY  OF  HIS  MILITARY  DEGRADA- 
TION, JANUARY  STH,  1895. 

My  darling:  To  tell  you  what  I  have  suffered  to-day,  I 
do  not  wish ;  your  grief  is  so  great  that  I  am  not  going  to 
increase  it. 

In  promising  you  to  live,  in  promising  you  to  resist  until  my 
name  and  honour  are  re-established,  I  have  made  the  greatest 
sacrifice  that  a  man  of  heart,  an  honest  man  whose  honour  has 
just  been  snatched  away  from  him,  can  make.  Provided,  my 
God,  that  my  physical  forces  do  not  fail  me !  My  conscience, 
which  in  no  way  reproaches  me,  sustains  me ;  but  I  am  near 
the  end  of  patience  and  strength ;  to  have  consecrated  all  my 
life  to  honour,  never  to  have  sullied  it,  and  to  see  myself  where 
I  am,  after  having  been  subjected  to  the  most  outrageous  affront 
that  can  be  inflicted  on  a  soldier  ! 

So,  my  darling,  do  everything  in  the  world  to  find  the  real 
culprit,  do  not  give  it  up  for  a  single  instant.  It  is  my  only 
hope  in  the  horrible  misfortune  which  follows  me. 

I  will  tell  you  later,  when  we  are  happy  again,  what  I  have 
suffered  to-day,  how  many  times,  in  the  midst  of  these  numerous 
peregrinations  among  real  criminals  (he  speaks  of  the  common 
law  prisoners  confined  at  La  Sante),  my  heart  has  bled.  I  asked 
myself  what  I  was  doing  there,  why  I  was  there !  It  seemed  to 
me  that  I  was  the  victim  of  a  hallucination.  But  alas !  my 
clothes  torn  and  soiled  brutally  recall  the  truth  to  me ;  con- 
temptuous glances  that  are  cast  upon  me  tell  me  too  clearly  why 
I  am  here. 

Oh,  alas !  why  can  we  not  open,  with  a  scalpel,  the  heart  of 
people  and  read  therein  ?  All  good  people  who  saw  me  pass 
would  read  there,  graven  in  letters  of  gold :  "  That  man  is  a 
man  of  honour !  "  But  how  I  understand  them !  In  their 
place,  I  should  have  nothing  but  the  highest  contempt  at  the 
sight  of  an  officer  who  was  said  to  be  a  traitor. 

But,  alas,  that  is  what  is  tragic  :  this  traitor  is  not  I. 


APPENDIX.  347 

(The  same  day). 

I  have  the  courageous  soul  of  the  soldier.  I  ask  myself  if  I 
have  the  heroic  soul  of  the  martyr. 

(The  Same  Day.} 

Cheer  up !  I  retain  all  my  energy,  strong  in  my  pure  and 
spotless  conscience.  I  belong  to  my  family.  I  owe  it  to  my 
good  name,  I  have  not  the  right  to  desert  while  there  remains 
in  me  a  breath  of  life,  I  will  struggle  with  the  hope  of  soon 
seeing  the  light  dawn.  So,  pursue  all  researches.  .  .  .  The 
physical  sufferings  are  nothing,  you  know  that  I  do  not 
fear  them ;  but  my  moral  tortures  are  far  from  being  finished. 
O  my  darling,  what  was  I  doing  the  day  that  I  promised  you  to 
live  ?  I  really  believed  that  my  soul  was  stronger.  To  be 
always  resigned  when  one  is  innocent,  that  is  easy  to  say,  but 
hard  to  do. 


THE  PART  PLAYED  BY  COLONEL  Du  PATY  DE 
CLAM  AND  COLONEL  HENRY. 

[From  the  Report  of  M.  Ballot-Beauprt, 
May  2C)th,  1899.] 

Here  is  the  judgment,  on  Lieutenant-Colonel 
Du  Paty  de  Clam,  by  Commandant  Cuignet. 

Du  Paty  is  a  proud  fellow,  vain  even,  whose  vanity  is  still 
increased  by  the  success  of  his  career ;  he  has  always  been, 
according  to  those  who  know  him,  on  the  watch  for  opportunities 
that  would  place  him  in  the  foreground.  He  is,  at  the  same 
time,  of  a  character  easily  influenced,  has  an  insinuating 
disposition,  knows  well  how  to  make  a  good  impression  on  his 
chiefs  ;  he  is  what  we  call,  in  military  slang,  a  "  smoke-doctor." 

He  was  on  the  best  of  terms  with  General  de  Boisdeffre, 
and  when  the  Dreyfus  affair  came  up,  it  was  he  who  pushed 
the  arrest,  and  who  had  himself  designated  as  an  officer  of  the 
judicial  police. 


348  APPENDIX. 

When  Dreyfus  was  arrested  in  the  office  of  General  de 
Boisdeffre,  M.  Cochefert,  who  was  present  at  the  time,  said  to 
the  General : 

"  Leave  me  a  little  time  ;  in  an  hour  or  two  from  now,  I  will 
know  what  he  has  in  his  stomach  (ventre)." 

Du  Paty  protested  that  it  was  purely  a  military  affair;  he 
evidently  feared  that  the  honour  of  the  confession  would  escape 
him,  and  he  imagined,  there  and  then,  the  scene  of  the  dictation, 
hoping  by  this  means  to  obtain  the  admissions  of  Dreyfus. 

Dreyfus  was,  therefore,  arrested  immediately, 
and  he  was  taken  to  the  prison  of  Cherche-Midi 
by  Henry,  who  in  the  carriage  made  him  talk,  and 
prepared  an  account  of  their  conversation  for  the 
purpose  of  imputing  a  lie  to  him  : — 

Then  I  found  myself  in  a  room  adjoining  the  one  where  he 
(Captain  Dreyfus)  was  interrogated,  and  I  heard,  perfectly  and 
very  distinctly,  Commandant  Du  Paty  say  to  him,  "You  are 
accused  of  having  delivered  to  a  foreign  Power  a  note  upon 
covered  troops,  a  note  on  Madagascar,  a  projected  manual  on 
artillery  firing ; "  thus,  when  Captain  Dreyfus  asserted  that  Com- 
mandant Du  Paty  had  not  enumerated  to  him  any  of  the 
documents  in  question,  and  that  he  confined  himself  to  speaking 
of  secret  or  confidential  documents,  Captain  Dreyfus  knowingly 
concealed  the  truth. 

If  there  had  been  a  lie,  it  was  not  Dreyfus  who 
was  guilty  of  it,  but  Henry  himself. 

In  fact,  according  to  the  official  text  of  the  interrogatory  by 
Du  Paty  de  Clam,  which,  the  isth  of  October,  preceded  the 
incarceration,  Dreyfus  had  only  in  a  vague  manner  been 
accused  of  high  treason. 

Du  Paty  de  Clam  had  not  said  to  him,  "You 
are  accused  of  having  delivered  to  a  foreign  Power 
a  note  on  covered  troops,  a  note  on  Madagascar, 
and  a  projected  manual  on  artillery  firing." 


APPENDIX.  349 

Du  Paty  de  Clam  had  not  said  any  more  to  him, 
in  the  subsequent  interrogatories  of  the  i8th, 
22nd,  and  24th  October,  in  the  course  of  which  he 
had  merely  shown  some  detached  words  (of  the 
incriminating  note),  without  yet  determining  the 
accusation. 

The  24th,  particularly,  the  following  colloquy 
took  place  between  them. 

Q. — You  know  then  of  what  you  are  accused,  when  you 
said  a  little  while  ago  that  you  did  not  know  ? 

A. — I  am  always  told  that  I  have  stolen  documents,  with- 
out being  shown  the  foundation  for  the  accusation.  I  ask  that 
I  be  shown  the  incriminating  papers,  and  I  shall  perhaps  under- 
stand then  the  infernal  plot  or  web  that  is  being  woven 
around  me." 

It  was  only  on  October  2Qth  that,  also  in  terms 
voluntarily  inexact,  Du  Paty  de  Clam  said  to  him  : 
"  Here  is  the  photograph  of  a  letter  which  is 
attributed  to  you.  This  letter  was  taken  abroad 
by  means  of  a  photographic  portfolio,  and  we  are 
in  possession  of  the  film  negative.  Do  you  recog- 
nise this  letter  as  being  in  your  handwriting?  " 

And  on  the  3ist  he  addressed  to  the  Minister  a 
report  containing  statements  which  do  not  figure  in 
the  interrogatory  signed  by  Dreyfus  ;  for  example : 
"  On  two  occasions  I  pretended  to  go  out  to  send 
to  the  foreign  agent  to  whom  the  incriminating 
document  had  been  addressed,  the  letter  that 
Captain  Dreyfus  had  just  written  from  my  dicta- 
tion. Each  time  he  stopped  me  the  moment  I 
opened  the  door ;  the  third  time  only,  having  again 


350  APPENDIX. 

become  master  of  himself,  he  said  to  me,  "Oh, 
well,  try." 

Nevertheless,  said  Commandant  Cuignet,  M.  Du 
Paty  de  Clam  asked  himself  if  the  Minister  would 
find  the  charges  sufficient  and  would  transmit  the 
dossier  to  the  military  governor  of  Paris  ;  Henry, 
on  his  side,  had  the  same  thought. 

It  was  necessary  under  these  conditions,  in  order 
to  force  the  hand  of  the  Minister  of  War,  General 
Mercier,  to  noise  abroad  the  affair,  which  until  then 
had  remained  absolutely  secret. 

The  28th  of  October,  an  editor  of  the  journal 
the  Libre  Parole,  M.  Papillaud,  received  this 
letter  :— 

My  dear  friend,  I  told  you  so ;  it  is  Captain  Dreyfus,  who 
lives  at  6,  Avenue  du  Trocadero,  who  was  arrested  the  i5th  for 
being  a  spy,  and  who  is  in  prison  at  the  Cherche-Midi- Jail. 
They  say  that  he  is  travelling,  but  it  is  a  lie,  because  they  wish  to 
keep  the  affair  quiet.  All  Israel  is  moving. 

Truly  yours, 

HENRY. 

The  3  ist,  the  Eclair  announced  the  arrest  of  a 
Jewish  officer. 

And  November  ist,  the  Libre  Parole,  the  violent 
anti-Semitic  newspaper,  had  in  large  letters  :  High 
treason,  arrest  of  the  Jewish  Officer,  A.  Dreyfus. 

"  As  the  journals  had  commenced  to  publish  the 
affair,"  said  General  Mercier,  "I  asked  the 
President  of  the  Council  to  convene  the  Cabinet, 
which  decided,  All  Saints  Day,  to  put  Dreyfus  in 
the  hands  of  military  justice." 


APPENDIX.  351 

Is  it  Henry  himself  who  had  written  the  letter  of 
October  28th?  M.  Papillaud,  in  the  Libre 
Parole  of  April  3rd,  1899,  declares — "For  me 
this  letter  has  only  the  value  of  an  anonymous 
letter,  as  I  do  not  know  by  whom  it  is  signed." 

But  Commandant  Cuignet  believes  that  the 
indiscretion  originated  with  Du  Paty  de  Clam,  who 
elsewhere  denies  it. 

Du  Paty  indulged,  for  his  own  benefit,  in  reprehensible 
acts;  it  is  he  who,  without  the  knowledge  of  his  chiefs, 
informed  the  Press  of  the  arrest  of  Dreyfus,  which  had  been 
kept  back  by  the  Government  for  fifteen  days;  he  wished  in 
this  way  to  force  the  hand  of  the  Government  and  have  the 
trial. 

This  manoeuvre — whoever  may  have  been  its 
author — (Du  Paty  de  Clam  or  Henry) — had  then 
succeeded. 

On  the  3rd  of  November  the  order  for  an 
inquiry  was  given. 

And  Commandant  d'Ormescheville  heard,  in  his 
examination,  Henry,  who,  under  oath,  "  maintained 
exactly  the  terms  of  his  report,"  that  is  to  say,  the 
imputation  of  a  lie  directed  against  Dreyfus,  when 
it  was  the  imputation  itself  that  was  untruthful. 

The  examination  finished,  the  Council  of  War 
was  convened  for  the  I9th  of  December,  and  during 
four  days  sat  behind  closed  doors. 

Du  Paty  de  Clam  and  Henry  were  both 
summoned  as  witnesses. 

The  attitude  of  the  first  is  characterised  in  a 
rxote  which  before  the  pleading  Dreyfus  sent  to  his 


352  APPENDIX. 

advocate,  Me.  Demange.     This  note  is  wholly  in 
the  hand  of  the  accused. 

Without  Commandant  Du  Paty  the  whole  accusation  would 
already  have  fallen ;  it  is  he  who  stirs  up  hate.  Has  he  the 
right  thus  to  come  constantly  intervening  in  the  debates  ?  One 
would  surely  say  that  it  was  he  who  directed  them. 

Henry  had  an  attitude  still  more  significant. 

He  was  delegated  by  the  Minister  of  War  to 
testify  in  the  name  of  the  Information  Bureau. 

General  Zurlinden  explains  :  "  As  in  all  trials  for 
espionage,  an  officer  from  the  Information  Bureau 
was  delegated  by  the  Minister  of  War  to  testify  in 
the  name  of  the  service :  the  officer  designated 
was  Henry." 

It  is  in  the  name  of  the  Information  Bureau,  in 
the  name  of  the  Chief  of  the  General  Staff,  in  the 
name  of  the  Minister  himself,  that  Henry  spoke  to 
the  Council  of  War. 

His  word,  therefore,  must  have  considerable 
weight  in  the  balance  ! 

And  what  did  he  say  ? 

Here  is  the  note  of  Dreyfus  : 

After  the  deposition  of  Commandant  Henry,  unmeaning 
enough,  Commandant  Du  Paty  de  Clam  had  him  called  to  the  bar. 
Commandant  Henry  has,  then,  made  a  terrible  declaration,  but 
without  any  proof.  It  is  an  infamy  to  come  forward  and  make 
such  a  declaration  without  bringing  any  testimony  to  bear  it  out. 
To  accuse  an  officer  at  the  bar  without  bringing  any  proof — it 
is  monstrous  ! 

And  Me.  Demange  added  this  comment : 

Commandant  Henry  was  heard  twice  by  the  audience.  The 
first  time  he  said  nothing  new ;  then  he  asked  to  be  heard  a 


APPENDIX.  353 

second  time ;  he  then  declared  with  a  solemn  tone  that,  since 
the  month  of  February,  a  person  absolutely  honourable  *  had 
stated  to  him  that  an  officer  of  the  Ministry  of  War  was 
a  traitor,  and  that  in  the  month  of  March  the  same  person  had 
renewed  his  assertion,  adding  that  it  was  an  officer  of  the  Second 
Bureau. 

Dreyfus  who,  in  the  first  six  months  of  1894,  was  m  the 
Second  Bureau,  asked  with  violence  that  the  honourable  person 
be  called  by  the  Council  of  War;  I,  in  my  turn,  insisted  with 
energy,  demanding  the  name  of  this  honourable  person,  and 
calling  upon  the  witness,  in  the  name  of  the  oath  he  had  taken, 
to  tell  the  whole  truth.  Commandant  Henry  replied  to  me  : 
"  When  an  officer  has  a  terrible  secret  in  his  head,  he  does  not 
confide  it  even  to  his  cap";  then  turning  towards  Dreyfus: 
"  I  assert,  myself,  that  the  traitor  is  there !  " 

The  Councillor  of  State,  M.  Lepine,  who  in  his 
official  capacity  as  Prefect  of  Police  attended  the 
debates,  expresses  himself  in  these  terms  : 

The  deposition  of  Commandant  Henry  ....  it  was 
very  short;  it  lasted  some  minutes  hardly;  it  bore  upon  the 
suspicions  of  the  Staff,  upon  the  discovery  of  the  bordereau. 
Some  brief,  categorical  phrases ;  it  would  be  impossible  for  me 
to  quote  from  memory  the  terms  of  this  sensational  deposition  ; 
but  the  tone,  the  gestures,  the  attitude  of  the  commandant,  I  see 
them  yet.  It  was  the  apparition  of  the  judge.  When  I  recall 
at  the  end  of  four  years  this  vision  of  Henry  raising  his  hand, 
the  Cross  of  the  Legion  of  Honour  on  his  large  chest,  it  seems 
to  me  that  there  were  only  two  words  in  his  deposition  :  "  It  is 
he — I  know  it,  I  swear  it !  " 

But  how  did  Henry  know  that  during  the  first 
six  months  of  1894  an  officer  of  the  Second 
Bureau  was  guilty  of  treason  ? 

*  It  has  been  proved  at  the  Rennes  Court  Martial  that  this 
"honourable  person"  was  a  foreigner  in  the  'pay  of  the  War 
Office. 

2  A 


354  APPENDIX. 

It  was — according  to  General  Roget — through 
an  agent  of  the  Information  Bureau,  who,  in  two 
reports  of  the  28th  of  March  and  the  6th  of  April, 
1894,  had  declared  that  he  knew  from  an  honourable 
person,  occupying  a  high  position  in  Paris,  M.  de 
B  .  .  .  .,  that  among  the  officers  of  the  Staff  be- 
longing, or  having  recently  belonged,  to  the  Second 
Bureau,  was  a  traitor  ;  and  M.  de  B  .  .  .  .  had 
personally,  in  June  following,  furnished  verbal 
information  to  Henry  of  the  same  nature. 

On  this  we  must  make  three  comments : 

ist.  That  in  the  Picquart  testimony  we  read :  "  I  know 
perfectly  the  person  called  honourable,  and  if  it  is  impossible 
for  me  to  name  him  without  asking  the  authorisation  of  the 
Minister,  I  can  at  least,  if  you  desire  it,  say  a  word  on  the 
subject.  This  person  I  have  characterised  as  worthless, 
and,  in  my  opinion,  he  is  nothing  else ;  he  was  in  relations 
with  the  foreign  diplomatic  world,  and  related  to  Henry, 
either  directly,  or  by  the  intermediary  of  a  police  officer 
of  lower  grade,  named  Guenee,  what  was  said  between 
military  attaches,  and  he  repeated  it,  often  without  taking 
into  account  the  value  of  what  he  heard.  I  have  at  another 
time  given  to  this  man,  through  Henry,  a  sum  of  1200  francs 
to  reward  him  for  his  services. 

2nd.  That  in  the  reports  of  the  agent  Guenee  of  March  28th 
and  April  6th  there  is  no  question  of  an  officer  of  the  Second 
Bureau. 

3rd.  That  in  a  note  addressed  to  the  Keeper  of  Seals  on 
September  loth,  1898,  the  Minister  of  War,  General  Zur linden, 
merely  said : 

"Two  months  later,  in  1894,  in  a  conversation  with 

Commandant  Henry,  M.  de  B returned  to  the  same 

question,  and  renewed  his  accusation,  fixing  and  specifiying  that 
the  correspondent  of  A  and  of  B  was  an  officer  belonging  or 
having  belonged  recently  to  the  Second  Bureau. 


APPENDIX.  355 

M.  de  B.  .  .  .had  he  really  furnished  this  infor- 
mation ? 

Nothing  establishes  it. 

But  the  deposition  of  Henry,  who  asserted  it  as 
delegate  of  the  Minister  of  War,  had  for  this  reason, 
even  more  than  that  of  Du  Paty  de  Clam,  an 
exceptional  importance. 

It  remains  to  examine  if  the  further  conduct 
of  the  two  witnesses  did  not  take  away  all  value, 
all  guarantees  of  sincerity,  from  the  declarations 
that  they  made  in  1894  before  the  Council 
of  War,  and  if  the  authority  for  the  judgment 
given  is  not  found  from  that  time  necessarily 
shaken. 

The  complaints  against  them  all  had  their  origin 
in  the  suspicions  which  in  1896  Lieutenant-Colonel 
Picquart,  who  had  succeeded  Colonel  Sandherr  as 
Chief  of  the  Section  of  Statistics  since  July  ist 
preceding,  had  conceived  and  expressed,  in  regard 
to  Walsin  Esterhazy,  chief  of  battalion,  whom  he 
considered  the  author  of  the  bordereau. 

In  what  way  were  these  suspicions  really  roused  ? 
Had  they  been  caused  by  the  discovery  of  a 
telegram,  of  &  petit  bleu,  received  at  the  Information 
Bureau  in  March,  1896,  and  presented  in  August 
by  M.  Picquart  to  General  Gonse  as  compromising 
Esterhazy,  to  whom  a  foreign  agent  would  have 
addressed  it? 

Was  the  telegram  authentic,  or  was  it  false  ? 

Under  these  circumstances,  had  Picquart  taken 
for  confidant  one  of  his  friends — M.  Leblois,  lawyer 

2  A  2 


356  APPENDIX. 

— and  had  he  shown  him  secret  papers,  interesting 
to  the  security  of  the  State  ? 

It  must  be  remembered  that  Picquart,  having 
collected  information  derogatory  to  the  morality  of 
Esterhazy  and  his  involved  financial  situation, 
having  learned  also,  from  an  interview  arranged 
outside  of  France  between  Commandant  Henry, 
aided  by  Captain  Lauth,  and  a  foreign  agent,  R.C., 
that  a  French  chief  of  battalion,  aged  from  forty- 
five  to  fifty  years,  was  said  to  have  given  informa- 
tion in  1893  or  1894  in  regard  to  a  gun  on  trial  at 
Chalons  camp,  on  the  new  rapid  firing  cannon,  and 
on  fortification  works  in  the  East — having  succeeded 
at  last  in  procuring  letters  in  Esterhazy's  hand- 
writing, wished  to  make  the  Chief  of  Staff  and  the 
Minister  share  his  conviction  that  the  author  of  the 
bordereau  was  Esterhazy,  and  not  Dreyfus. 

It  is  important  to  remember,  on  the  other  hand, 
that  the  officers  under  orders  at  the  Section  of 
Statistics  were  disturbed  by  these  steps ;  that 
particularly  Commandant  Henry  had  resolved  to 
counteract  Picquart's  work,  to  ruin  his  authority 
in  the  eyes  of  Generals  de  Boisdeffre  and  Gonse, 
and  that,  with  this  object  in  view,  he  allied  himself 
with  the  legal  police  officer  of  the  Dreyfus  trial, 
Lieutenant-Colonel  Du  Paty  de  Clam. 

Then,  to  reply  to  the  production  of  the  petit  bleu 
and  to  a  note  of  September  ist,  1896,  in  which 
Lieutenant-Colonel  Picquart  gave  his  opinion  on 
the  guilt  of  Esterhazy,  appeared  successively  two 
false  documents, 


APPENDIX.  357 

September  4th,  1896,  the  "  Weyler  forgery" 
(No.  372  of  the  secret  dossier)  ;  it  is  a  letter  sent 
to  the  Minister  of  Colonies  to  be  forwarded  to 
Dreyfus ;  in  this  letter,  whose  characters  are 
strangely  twisted,  the  signature,  a  pretended 
Weyler,  announces  the  approaching  marriage  of 
his  daughter.  But  between  the  lines  was  written 
in  invisible  ink  this  phrase :  "  Impossible  to  under- 
stand last  communication  ;  necessary  to  return  to 
the  old  system  ;  let  me  know  the  word  for  the 
cupboards,  and  where  the  documents  taken  away 
can  be  found  ;  actor  ready  to  act  at  once." 

Commandant  Cuignet  declared,  before  the 
Criminal  Chamber  of  the  Court  of  Cassation, 
that,  to  his  mind,  this  paper,  fraudulently  pre- 
pared to  increase  the  charges  against  Dreyfus, 
was  the  work  of  Du  Paty  de  Clam.  But  the  latter 
denies  it. 

The  second  fraud,  October  3ist  to  November 
2nd,  1896,  is  the  Henry  forgery ;  we  will  return  to 
him. 

Meanwhile  the  Eclair  inserted  in  its  number  of 
September  I5th  the  article  relating  the  communi- 
cation which,  at  the  Council  of  War  of  1894,  had 
been  made  in  regard  to  the  paper  "This  rascal 

D "   (canaille  de  D ),  wherein   the  words 

"  that  rascal  D "  had  been  replaced  by  "  that 

animal     Dreyfus."      Commandant    Cuignet     also 
attributes  this  article  to  Du  Paty  de  Clam. 

Nevertheless,  they  had  succeeded  in  persuading 
General  Billot  that  Picquart,  who  had  been  sent 


358  APPENDIX. 

on  a  mission,  should  be  replaced  by  Henry  him- 
self as  Chief  of  the  Bureau  of  Statistics. 

And,  a  month  after  Picquart's  departure,  a  letter, 
which  was  said  to  be  addressed  to  him,  signed 
"  Speranza,"  intended  to  destroy  him,  was  detained 
at  the  Ministry  of  War  (he  did  not  know  it  until  a 
year  after) ;  it  was  another  counterfeit  of  which  Du 
Paty  de  Clam  pretends  to  have  had  no  knowledge. 

But  it  was  already  felt  that  a  campaign  was 
going  to  be  undertaken  for  the  revision  of  the 
Dreyfus  trial.  M.  Bernard  Lazare  had  published 
a  pamphlet  entitled  "A  Judicial  Error."  The 
relatives  and  friends  of  the  condemned  man  were 
moving,  and  Senator  Scheurer-Kestner,  convinced 
of  his  innocence,  had  on  September  I2th,  1897,  when 
at  Belfort,  announced  to  a  superior  officer  of  the 
Staff  his  intention  to  follow  up  the  revision.  As 
indicated  in  a  recent  letter  from  him,  published  with 
his  authorisation,  he  had  been  begged  by  this  officer, 
on  October  i6th,  in  the  name  of  the  Minister,  not 
to  make  any  beginning  without  seeing  him. 

Therefore,  on  the  i6th  of  October,  at  the  General 
Staff,  it  was  decided  to  warn  Esterhazy,  in  order 
that  he  could  be  on  his  guard. 

An  anonymous  letter,  signed  P.  D.  C.  (is  it  Paty 
de  Clam  ?),  had  been  sent  to  the  Minister  to  delay 
action ;  and  a  meeting  took  place,  in  which  the 
question  was  discussed  whether  they  should  write 
under  cover  of  an  assumed  name  to  Esterhazy, 
whose  address  Henry  had  found  through  Gribelin, 
keeper  of  records  in  the  Marne. 


APPENDIX.  359 

"  It  is  true,"  said  Du  Paty  de  Clam,  "  that  there  was  a  meet- 
ing in  which  the  means  of  warning  Esterhazy  were  discussed, 
and  among  the  suggestions  was  that  of  an  anonymous  letter, 
whose  composition  was  modified  twice.  One  of  these  letters 
was  almost  a  verbatim  copy  of  an  anonymous  letter  written  to 
the  address  of  the  Ministry.  The  other  was  much  shorter  and 
was  composed  by  Colonel  Henry." 

"  The  letters  must  still  be  in,  existence ;  they  were  not  sent. 
The  last  time  that  I  saw  the  dossiers  in  which  these  letters 
ought  to  be,  they  were  at  the  Staff  office." 

"  One  day,"  said  General  Billot,  "  I  do  not  recall  the  exact 
date,  General  Gonse,  in  his  midday  report,  when  giving  me 
different  anonymous  documents,  announced  that  a  campaign  was 
going  to  be  made  to  accuse  Commandant  Esterhazy  of  being  the 
author  of  the  treason  for  which  Dreyfus  had  been  condemned. 
General  Gonse  asked  me,  as  well  as  the  Councillor  who  had 
come  to  call  me,  and  who  had  mentioned  to  him  a  note  verified 
by  M.  Gonse,  my  opinion,  and  said  that  he  had  asked  the 
Minister  if  it  would  not  be  in  order  to  warn  this  officer  by  an 
anonymous  letter. 

"  I  replied  to  General  Gonse  that  not  only  would  I  not 
authorize  a  communication  of  this  nature,  but  I  should  forbid  it 
in  a  formal  manner. 

"In  the  evening,  at  six  o'clock,  I  notified  General  de  Bois- 
deffre  of  this  incident  at  the  time  of  the  report,  and  I  told  him 
to  renew  to  General  Gonse  the  order  that  I  had  given  him. 

"  The  next  morning,  at  the  noon  report,  General  Gonse, 
when  I  questioned  him,  replied  that  he  had  received  from 
General  de  Boisdeffre  the  confirmation  of  my  orders." 

Esterhazy  nevertheless  received,  the  1 8th  or  2Oth, 
a  letter  signed  "  Esperance,"  which  we  quote  : 

"  Your  name  is  going  to  be  the  object  of  a  great  scandal. 
The  Dreyfus  family  are  going  to  accuse  you  publicly  of  being 
the  author  of  the  writing  which  served  as  the  cause  of  the  trial 
Dreyfus.  This  family  has  numerous  models  of  your  writing  to 
use  as  points  in  the  examination.  A  colonel  who  was  at  the 
Ministry  last  year,  M.  Picquart,  gave  the  papers  to  the  Dreyfus 


360  APPENDIX. 

family.  This  gentleman  has  now  left  for  Tonkin,  I  believe. 
The  Dreyfus  family  count  on  making  you  wild  by  publishing 
specimens  of  your  handwriting  in  the  journals,  and  making  you 
flee  to  your  relatives  in  Hungary.  This  will  indicate  that  you 
are  guilty ;  and  then  the  revision  of  the  trial  will  be  asked  for 
in  order  to  have  the  innocence  of  Dreyfus  proclaimed.  It  is 
M.  Picquart  who  gave  the  information  to  the  family.  This 
M.  Picquart  brought  your  handwriting  from  sub-chiefs  at  Rouen 
last  year.  I  hear  all  that  from  a  sergeant  of  your  regiment,  to 
whom  they  gave  money  to  have  your  handwriting.  You  are 
now  well  warned  of  what  these  scoundrels  will  do  to  ruin  you. 
It  is  for  you  now  to  defend  your  name  and  the  honour  of  your 
children.  Make  haste,  for  the  family  are  going  to  take  steps  to 
ruin  you. 

"  Your  devoted  friend, 

"  ESP£RANCE." 

"  Do  not  show  this  letter  to  any  one.     It  is  for  you  alone, 
and  to  save  you  from  the  great  dangers  which  threaten  you." 


M.  Du  Paty  de  Clam,  before  the  Criminal 
Chamber,  on  January  I2th  last,  declared  that  he 
was  not  the  author  of  this  letter. 

But  had  he  not  himself  admitted  the  contrary  on 
the  loth  of  September  preceding,  before  General 
Renouard,  who,  in  his  Report  the  next  morning  to 
the  Minister  of  War,  said,  "  Questioned  on  the 
circumstances  which  had  given  him  a  knowledge  of 
the  intended  campaign  projected  and  undertaken 
against  Esterhazy,  Lieutenant-Colonel  Du  Paty  de 
Clam  pretends  that  having  received  orders  from 
his  chiefs  to  prepare  successively  two  drafts  of 
anonymous  letters  destined  to  warn  Esterhazy, 
letters  that  he  also  claimed  had  not  been  sent — he 
concluded  from  this  that  they  proposed,  by  charg- 


APPENDIX.  361 

ing  him  with  this  work,  to  make  him  au  courant 
with  the  affair  in  order  to  incite  him  to  warn 
Esterhazy." 

General  Roget  also  does  not  hesitate  to  say,  "  I 
have  been  able  to  secure  the  certainty  that  the 
letter  of  October  26th,  1897,  signed  "Esperance" 
....  is  that  of  Du  Paty. 

Be  that  as  it  may,  Esterhazy  was  warned  ;  he 
hastened  to  Paris,  and  incredible  scenes  took  place. 

Esterhazy  said  before  the  Criminal  Chamber  : — 

"  In  October  1897  I  was  in  the  country,  when  I  received  on 
October  i8th  (I  was  told  to  say  that  it  was  the  aoth)  a  letter  ; 
this  letter  was  signed  '  Esperance.' 

"On  receipt  of  this  letter,  whose  handwriting  I  did  not  know, 
I  was  very  much  surprised  and  started  for  Paris. 

"  I  went  to  the  Rue  de  Douai.  I  would  have  it  understood 
that,  until  then,  I  had  concealed,  in  the  strictest  manner,  my 
relations  with  Mme.  Pays,  and  I  thought  that  only  a  very  few 
persons  at  the  Ministry  of  War,  and  under  conditions  that  I 
will  explain  later,  could  know  of  them. 

"I  had  telegraphed  to  Mme.  Pays,  who  was  in  Normandy, 
to  return. 

"  The  morning  after  my  arrival  I  was  very  much  occupied 
with  this  letter,  and  in  the  evening,  on  returning  about  the 
dinner  hour,  I  learned  from  the  concierge  (animated  at  that 
time  by  different  sentiments  from  those  she  has  since  mani- 
fested), that  a  gentleman  had  been  to  inquire  for  me.  I  was 
very  much  surprised  ;  no  one,  in  fact,  knew  of  this  address. 

"  The  concierge  told  me  that  she  had  declared  to  this  gentle- 
man that  I  was  unknown ;  he  replied  that  he  knew  perfectly 
well  that  I  was  in  the  house ;  that,  furthermore,  he  had  come 
in  my  interest,  and  that  it  was  absolutely  necessary  for  him  to 
see  me  ;  he  had  told  her  that  he  would  return  in  the  evening. 

"  I  went  to  my  home,  27,  Rue  de  la  Bienfaisance,  where  I 
could  not  get  in,  having  left  the  keys  in  the  country. 

"  I  asked  the  concierge  if  any  one  had  been  to  inquire  for  me. 


362 


APPENDIX. 


I  thought  that  any  one  who  wanted  to  see  me  would  first  go  to 
my  only  known  residence. 

"  The  concierge  said  she  had  seen  no  one. 

"  I  returned  then  to  the  Rue  de  Douai,  and  waited  all  the 
evening. 

"No  one  came. 

"  The  next  morning  at  an  early  hour  (half-past  seven)  the 
concierge  came  up  and  told  me  that  the  gentleman  who  came 
the  night  before  was  waiting  in  the  street,  near  the  Square 
Vintimille. 

"  I  went  down,  and  I  found  some  one  with  blue  spectacles, 
and  whose  whole  bearing,  in  spite  of  his  efforts,  stamped  him 
as  a  soldier. 

"  This  gentleman  came  to  me  and  said : 

"  '  Commandant,  I  am  charged  with  a  very  grave  communica- 
tion in  your  urgent  interest.' 

"  The  manner  of  this  man,  the  certainty  I  had  that  no  one 
outside  of  the  Ministry  could  know  that  I  might  be  at  the  Rue 
de  Douai,  caused  me  to  at  once  suppose  that  I  was  in  the 
presence  of  a  messenger  from  the  Ministry  of  War. 

"  I  replied  to  this  man  that  I  thought  I  knew  the  object 
of  his  visit,  and  that  I  had  received  in  the  country  a  letter 
containing  a  very  singular  announcement.  This  person  then 
said : — 

"  '  Do  not  be  uneasy,  my  commandant ;  we  know  what  there 
is  in  all  that ;  you  have  defenders  and  protectors  who  are  very 
powerful  and  au  courant  with  everything.  Will  you  come  this 
evening  to  the  rendezvous  that  I  am  going  to  indicate  ? ' 

"  I  said  to  him :  '  Very  willingly.' 

"  And  he  then  showed  me  a  piece  of  paper,  indicating  the 
angle  of  the  Reservoir  for  the  waters  of  the  Vanne,  opposite  the 
Park  of  Montsouris. 

"  The  rendezvous  was  for  five  o'clock. 

"  "  I  went  to  the  place  at  the  time  mentioned,  and,  at  precisely 
five  o'clock,  I  saw  a  carriage  stop  at  a  point  about  one  hundred 
yards  from  where  I  was,  in  which  there  were  three  persons. 

"  Two  of  these  persons  stepped  out ;  the  third  remained  in 
the  carriage  5  the  other  two  came  to  me.  In  one  I  recognized 
the  man  I  had  seen  in  the  morning.  The  other  had  a  false 


APPENDIX.  363 


oeard  and  spectacles.     The  latter  person  spoke  to  me  quickly, 
saying : 

u  '  Commandant,  you  know  what  this  means  ? ' 
"  And  very  rapidly,  with  great  volubility,  he  related  all  that 
had  been  done  against  me  since  1894  by  Colonel  Picquart, 
entering  into  numerous  details  on  the  manoeuvres  of  many 
important  persons — things  which  at  that  time  were  absolutely 
new  to  me. 

"  This  man  also  assured  me,  seeing  the  profound  surprise 
that  I  manifested  at  all  this  news,  that  all  these  machinations 
were  known,  foreseen ;  repeated  to  me  that  I  had  the  most 
powerful  defenders,  and  that  I  must  only  obey  strictly  the 
instructions  which  would  be  given  me,  that  my  name  would  not 
even  be  mentioned. 

"  I  tried  at  various  times  to  make  him  tell  who  he  was,  but 
without  succeeding. 

"  I  saw,  however,  that  he  was  an  officer  ;  I  should  have  been 
glad  to  know  who  he  was  and  from  whom  he  came. 

"  He  told  me  at  the  end  of  half  an  hour's  conversation,  not  to 
be  disturbed ;  that  I  should  be  kept  au  courant,  and  that  I 
should  be  every  day  in  the  waiting-room  of  the  Military  Club 
at  five  o'clock,  where  the  first  man  would  come  to  find  me  if 
there  was  anything  to  tell  me. 

"  They  left  me,  telling  me  to  go  away  in  a  certain  direction  ; 
they  left  from  the  side  where  the  carriage  was,  so  that  I  could 
not  see  the  third  person  who  had  remained  in  the  carriage. 

"  The  next  morning,  at  the  same  hour  as  the  day  before, 
the  concierge  brought  me  a  line  in  pencil  saying  : 

"  '  In  the  cab,  before  a  certain  number,  Rue  Vintimille.' 
"  I  went  in  all  haste ;  I  found  the  man  with  the  false  beard, 
who  said  to  me  :  '  Get  in  quickly ' ;  and  told  me  to  indicate  a 
place  where  we  could  have  a  long  talk  without  being  disturbed. 
"  I  said  to  him :  '  I  do  not  know  any  other  place  around 
here   than   the  Cemetery  of  Montmartre,  if  you  wish  to  go 
there.' 

"  We  went  there,  and  then  this  man  said  to  me : — 
"  '  You  must  ask  at  once  for  an  audience  with  the  Minister  of 
War,  and  we  will  state  what  you  are  to  say  to  him  (because  I 
had  asked  :  "  Demand  an  audience  of  the  Minister,  to  tell  him 


364 


APPENDIX. 


what  ?     To  show  him  this  letter  that  I  have  received  ?)     He 
then  answered : 

" '  No,  we  will  arrange  what  you  are  to  say  to  him.' 

"  I  then  said  to  him  : 

"  '  But  all  this  is  very  well.  I  see  that  you  are  an  officer.  1 
discern  that  you  come  from  the  Ministry ;  I  should  very  much 
like  to  know  who  you  are  ? ' 

"  The  man  replied  : 

"  '  I  am  Colonel  Du  Paty  de  Clam,  of  the  staff  of  the  army. 
And  you  have  only  to  do  what  I  tell  you.' 

"  I  did  not  know  Colonel  Du  Paty  de  Clam. 

"  I  had  met  him  once  for  an  hour,  sixteen  or  seventeen  years 
before,  at  a  meeting  of  two  columns  in  Africa.  In  view  of  his 
grade  and  his  capacity,  I  said  to  him  : 

" '  That  is  sufficient,  my  colonel ;  you  can  count  on  my  absolute 
obedience.' 

"Then  Colonel  Du  Paty  de  Clam  dictated  to  me  in  the 
cemetery  itself  a  request  for  an  audience  with  the  Minister, 
gave  me  to  understand  that  he  would  have  to  make  a  report  of 
what  had  passed,  and  gave  me  a  rendezvous  for  the  same  evening. 

"  He  had  said  nothing  about  the  rendezvous  at  the  Military 
Club ;  I  went  there,  however,  and  I  found  the  first  gentle- 
man, who  made  me  get  into  a  carriage,  and  took  me  slowly  as 
far  as  the  Cirque  d'Hiver. 

"  He  told  me,  with  many  details,  all  the  machinations  of 
'which  I  knew  nothing.  He  assured  me  that  I  was  perfectly 
well  known,  and  laid  great  stress  on  the  high  protection  of  which 
he  had  spoken  to  me  the  day  before. 

"  I  had  addressed  my  letter  to  the  Minister. 

"  In  the  evening  I  again  saw  at  the  meeting-place  indicated, 
Colonel  Du  Paty  de  Clam,  who  made  me  write  from  his  dicta- 
tion notes  in  regard  to  what  I  was  to  say  to  General  Billot. 
The  same  evening  I  found  Colonel  Henry  in  a  carriage  before 
my  door. 

"  Colonel  Henry  was  one  of  my  comrades.  I  had  been  with 
him  for  more  than  twenty  years  in  the  Information  Department, 
very  soon  after  the  organization  of  the  department ;  I  was  there 
as  lieutenant,  and  Henry  also  had  the  same  grade  and  the  same 
employment ;  I  had  seen  him  very  frequently  since. 


APPENDIX.  365 

"  I  knew  later  that  the  third  person  who  remained  in  the 
carriage  at  the  park  of  Montsouris  was  Colonel  Henry.  Henry 
then  very  briefly  told  me  not  to  be  alarmed,  that  all  that 
Colonel  Du  Patyde  Clam  had  told  me  was  entirely  correct,  and 
that  in  high  authority  they  well  knew  what  was  going  on,  and 
were  determined  to  defend  me  by  the  most  extreme  measures 
against  what  he  called  '  abominable  manoeuvres.' " 

Are  these  assertions  of  Esterhazy  exact  ? 

It  is  impossible,  unfortunately,  to  have  the  least 
doubt,  in  view  of  the  statements  of  the  archivist, 
Gribelin,  who  accompanied  them,  and  of  Du  Paty 
himself. 

But  let  us  continue  the  testimony  of  Esterhazy  : 

"  The  next  morning  I  was  notified  that  I  would  be  received 
the  day  after  by  General  Millet,  Director  of  Infantry,  in  the 
name  of  the  Minister. 

"  I  saw  Colonel  Du  Paty,  and  I  said  to  him: 

"  '  Why  General  Millet  ?  The  chief  of  a  sub-direction  has 
nothing  to  see  in  such  a  matter.  If  the  Minister  did  not  wish 
to  receive  me,  he  should  have  arranged  for  the  Chief  of  his 
Cabinet  to  do  so,  or  rather  the  Chief  of  the  Staff  of  the  army.' 

"In  fact,  the  very  wording  of  my  request  for  an  audience 
explained  that  it  was  on  a  matter  important  enough  for  the 
Chief  of  Staff. 

"  The  Colonel  replied  that  it  was  not  necessary  to  see 
General  Boisdeffre,  consequently  he  must  remain  in  reserve, 
thus  indicating  that  General  de  Boisdeffre  did  not  wish  to  take 
any  active  part. 

"  I  went  to  see  General  Millet ;  I  presented  the  letter,  and  I 
related  to  him  what  I  had  been  instructed  to  say. 

"  The  general  listened  to  me,  and  told  me  that  he  found  it  all 
very  strange ;  that  it  was  the  first  intimation  he  had  of  it ;  that 
he  did  not  understand  the  story  at  all ;  that,  in  his  opinion,  I 
attached  a  great  deal  of  importance  to  an  anonymous  letter,  and 
that  he  could  only  advise  me  to  make  a  written  statement  of 
what  I  had  just  communicated  to  him,  to  enclose  a  copy  of  the 


366 


APPENDIX. 


anonymous  letter  that  I  had  received,  and  to  address  the  whole 
to  the  Minister. 

"The  same  evening  I  reported  to  Colonel  Du  Paty  de  Clam 
the  reply  of  General  Millet,  and  he  dictated  to  me  the  wording 
of  a  letter  to  address  to  the  Minister;  this  letter,  as  well  as  all 
that  I  wrote  in  1897,  was  given  word  for  word  as  ordered. 

"  This  letter  was  dictated  to  me  word  for  word.  It  contained 
a  series  of  explanations  agreed  upon,  and  the  wording  was  given 
me  for  my  approval,  as  is  proved  by  the  note  from  Colonel  Du 
Paty: 

"  '  Copy  your  letter  and  seal  it  well ;  keep  the  manuscript.'  " 

Esterhazy  resumed  : 

"At  the  same  time  Colonel  Du  Paty  said  to  me:  'The 
Minister  cannot  do  otherwise  than  tell  General  de  Boisdeffre  of 
the  contents  of  this  letter,  and  then  we  shall  move.' 

"  The  next  morning  at  the  post-office  in  the  Rue  de  Bac, 
opposite  the  Bon  Marche,  Colonel  Henry  informed  me  that 
General  de  Boisdeffre  had  not  yet  received  from  General  Billot 
any  communication  from  my  letter. 

"  I  insist  upon  this  fact,  because  if  Colonel  Henry  was  aware 
that  General  de  Boisdeffre  had  not  been  informed  by  the 
Minister  of  the  letter  that  I  had  written  to  the  latter,  he  could 
only  have  been  notified  of  it  by  General  de  Boisdeffre,  then 
awaiting  the  effect  of  my  letter,  and  consequently  knowing  the 
sender. 

"  Henry  said  to  me  : 

" '  The  Minister  is  going  to  keep  that  for  five  or  six  days  before 
taking  any  decision,  according  to  his  custom.  You  will  be  told 
this  evening  what  to  do.' 

"  That  evening  I  saw  Colonel  Du  Paty  on  the  Esplanade  of 
the  Invalides,  and  he  said  to  me : 

" '  It  is  decided  that  you  are  to  write  to  General  de  Boisdeffre 
directly ;  your  letter  will  then  permit  General  de  Boisdeffre  to 
intervene  personally  and  to  speak  to  the  Minister  of  the  letter 
that  you  have  sent  to  the  latter.' 

"  In  other  words,  it  would  induce  the  transmittal  of  my  letter 
to  General  de  Boisdeffre,  in  order  that  this  general  officer  could 


APPENDIX.  367 

come  upon  the  scene  himself,  thanks  to  the  letter  I  had  written 
him. 

"  At  this  time,  Colonel  Du  Paty  said  to  me  one  evening : 

"  '  The  chiefs  are  trying  to  have  with  you  a  means  of  com- 
munication which  will  not  be  disclosed,  because  it  is  probable 
that  you  are  watched.  Having  been  informed  of  all  that  is 
preparing,  it  would  be  better  to  have,  in  case  of  necessity,  an 
indirect  transmission.  General  de  Boisdeffre  thought  of  the 
Marquis  de  Nettancourt,  your  brother-in-law.' 

"  I  said :  '  No,  my  brother-in-law  is  in  the  country ;  I  do 
not  want  to  ask  him  to  return  for  such  a  service.' 

"  Then  he  said :  '  We  thought  also  of  one  of  your  comrades 
in  the  regiment ; '  and  he  asked  me  to  mention  one  of  them. 
I  said: 

"  '  Really,  one  cannot  ask  a  friend  to  run  like  that  at  all  hours 
of  the  day  or  night.' 

"  And  I  thought,  unfortunate  inspiration  it  was,  of  my 
cousin  Christian;  but  as  he  was  at  Bordeaux,  and  I  could  not 
make  him  come  back,  I  said : 

" '  I  would  propose  to  you  some  one  devoted  of  whom  I  am 
sure,  but  1  really  do  not  dare  to  make  the  proposition.'  And 
I  named  Mme.  Pays. 

"  Colonel  Du  Paty  told  me  that  he  would  report,  and  the 
next  morning  he  told  me  that  they  would  accept  Mme.  Pays  as 
intermediary. 

"  In  the  course  of  these  interviews  Colonel  Du  Paty  presented 
to  me  one  evening  a  lady  whom  it  is  useless  to  name,  and  who 
also  served  as  intermediary  at  various  times. 

"  At  this  moment  I  saw  Colonel  Henry,  who  said  to 
me — 

" '  All  these  people  do  not  move.  Meline  (the  Prime 
Minister)  and  Billot  (the  War  Minister)  and  all  the  Government 
are  taken  up  by  the  approaching  elections  and  by  the  votes 
represented  by  Scheurer-Kestner,  Reinach,  etc.,  etc.' 

"He  was  even  very  violent;  I  will  not  repeat  the  military 
terms  in  which  he  indulged.  He  ended  by  saying — 

"  '  If  we  do  not  put  a  bayonet  in  the  back  of  all  those  people, 
they  will  sacrifice  the  whole  French  Army  to  their  seat  as 
Senator  or  Deputy  ! ' 


368 


APPENDIX. 


"  And,  on  leaving  me,  he  said,  '  Sabre  in  hand !  We  are 
going  to  charge  ! ' 

"  This  occurred  the  day  before  my  first  letter  to  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  Republic,  that  is  to  say  the  28th  of  October. 

"  Colonel  Du  Paty  de  Clam  dictated  the  text  of  the  letter  to 
the  President  of  the  Republic. 

"  I  called  his  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  wording  of  this 
first  letter  was  very  extraordinary.  (All  the  details  of  this  letter 
were  dictated  to  me  word  for  word ;  this  dictation  took  place 
on  the  Esplanade  des  Invalides,  and  I  wrote  with  a  pencil). 

"  M.  Du  Paty  replied: 

"  '  Everybody  knows  that  you  are  queer.  From  you  it  will 
not  appear  extraordinary.  It  is  in  your  style.' 

"  I  remember  very  well  that  I  said  to  him — 

"  '  Since  it  is  like  that,  I  don't  care.  .  .  .  The  moment  that 
you  command  I  obey.' " 

"  Here  is  the  letter— 

"Paris,  October  2oth,  1897. 
"To  THE  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  REPUBLIC — 

"  I  have  the  honour  to  address  you  the  text  of  a  letter 
anonymously  written,  which  was  sent  to  me  the  aoth  of  October, 
1897. 

"  It  is  I  who  am  designated  in  that  letter  as  being  the  chosen 
victim.  I  do  not  wish  to  wait  until  my  name  has  been  given  to 
the  public  to  know  what  will  be  the  attitude  of  my  chiefs.  I 
therefore  addressed  my  chief  and  natural  protector,  the  Minister 
of  War,  to  know  if  he  would  summon  me  the  moment  my  name 
was  pronounced. 

"  The  Minister  has  not  replied.  Now  my  house  is  illustrious 
enough  in  the  annals  of  history  in  France  and  in  that  of  the 
great  European  Courts,  to  make  the  Government  of  my 
country  have  a  care  that  my  name  should  not  be  dragged  in 
the  mud. 

"  I  address  myself  to  the  supreme  chief  of  the  army — to  the 
President  of  the  Republic.  I  ask  him  to  stop  the  scandal,  as  he 
can  and  should. 

"  I  ask  him  for  justice  against  the  infamous  instigator  of  this 


APPENDIX.  369 

plot,  who  has   given  to  the  authors  of  this  machination   the 
secrets  of  his  Bureau  to  substitute  me  for  a  wretch. 

If  I  have  the  misfortune  not  to  be  listened  to  by  the  chief  of 
my  country,  my  precautions  are  taken  to  call  upon  the  chief  of 
my  house,  the  suzerain  of  the  Esterhazy  family,  the  Emperor 
of  Germany.  He  is  a  soldier,  and  will  know  how  to  place  the 
honour  of  a  soldier,  even  an  enemy,  above  mean  and  suspicious 
political  intrigues. 

He  will  dare  to  speak  loud  and  strong,  to  defend  the  honour 
of  six  generations  of  soldiers. 

It  is  for  you,  M.  le  President  of  the  Republic,  to  judge  if  you 
are  to  force  me  to  carry  the  question  on  this  ground.  An 
Esterhazy  fears  nothing  and  no  one,  except  God.  Nothing  and 
no  one  will  prevent  my  acting  as  I  say,  if  I  am  sacrificed  to  I  do 
not  know  what  miserable  political  combinations. 

I  am,  with  the  most  profound  respect,  etc. 

ESTERHAZY. 
Chief  of  Infantry  Battalion. 

Esterhazy  adds : 

"  The  next  morning,  or  days  following,  as  the  President  o  f 
the  Republic  had  not  replied,  they  made  me  write  the  letter 
about  the  document  liberateur. 

October  31^,  1897. 

M.  LE  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  REPUBLIC, 

I  have  the  regret  to  state  that  neither  the  Chief  of 
State  nor  the  Chief  of  the  Army  has  given  me  a  word  of  support, 
encouragement  or  consolation  in  reply  to  a  superior  officer  who 
places  his  threatened  honour  in  their  hands.  I  know  that 
considerations  of  Parliamentary  politics  prevent  the  Government 
from  making  a  frank  and  clear  declaration  placing  me  beyond 
harm,  and  stopping  for  ever  the  defenders  of  Dreyfus. 

I  do  not  wish  that  the  services  rendered  to  France  during 
one  hundred  and  sixty  years  by  five  general  officers  whose  name 
I  bear,  that  the  blood  shed,  that  the  memory  of  these  brave 
people  killed  in  the  face  of  the  enemy,  the  last  yet  very  recently, 
that  all  that  should  be  paid  with  infamy,  to  serve  such  com- 
binations and  save  a  poor  wretch.  I  am  driven  to  use  all  means 
in  my  power. 

2    B 


370  APPENDIX. 

Now,  the  generous  woman  who  warned  me  of  the  horrible 
machination  woven  against  me  by  the  friends  of  Dreyfus,  with 
the  aid  of  Colonel  Picquart,  has  been  able  to  procure  since, 
among  other  documents,  the  photograph  of  a  paper  that  she 
succeeded  in  getting  away  from  this  officer.  This  paper,  stolen 
in  a  foreign  legation,  by  Colonel  Picquart,  is  most,  compromising 
for  certain  diplomatic  personalities.  If  I  obtain  neither  support 
nor  justice,  and  if  my  name  is  pronounced,  this  photograph, 
which  is  to-day  in  a  secure  place,  will  be  immediately  published. 

Excuse  me,  M.  le  President,  for  having  recourse  to  this  means, 
so  little  in  keeping  with  my  character,  but  remember  that  I 
defend  much  more  than  my  life,  more  than  my  hononr,  the 
honour  of  a  family  without  spot,  and  in  this  desperate  struggle, 
where  all  supports  fail  me,  where  my  brain  is  bursting,  I  am 
obliged  to  make  use  of  all  weapons. 

I  am,  with  profound  respect,  etc., 

ESTERHAZY, 

Chief  of  Infantry  Battalion. 

Finally,  the  5th  of  November,  a  third  letter  : — 

Paris,  November  5th,  1899. 
M.  LE  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  REPUBLIC. 

Excuse  me  for  importuning  you  a  third  time,  but  I 
fear  that  the  Minister  of  War  has  not  communicated  to  you 
my  last  letters,  and  am  anxious  that  you  should  know  the 
situation.  It  is,  besides,  the  last  time  that  I  shall  address  myself 
to  the  public  powers.  The  woman  who  has  made  me  au  courant 
with  the  odious  machination  plotted  against  me  has  given  me, 
among  others,  a  paper  which  is  a  protection  for  me,  as  it  proves 
the  rascality  of  Dreyfus,  and  a  danger  for  my  country,  because 
its  publication  with  the  fac-simile  of  the  writing  would  force 
France  to  humiliate  itself  or  to  declare  war. 

You,  who  are  above  all  vain  party  quarrels  where  my  honour 
serves  as  ransom,  do  not  leave  me  under  the  necessity  of  choosing 
between  two  alternatives  equally  horrible. 

Force  the  Pontius-Pilate  of  politics  to  make  a  declaration 
clear  and  precise,  instead  of  manoeuvring  to  preserve  the  voices 
of  the  friends  of  Barabbas.  All  the  letters  I  have  written  wjll 


APPENDIX.  371 

be  placed  in  the  hands  of  one  of  my  relatives,  who  has  had  the 
honour  this  summer  to  be  received  by  two  emperors. 

What  will  be  thought  throughout  the  world,  when  the  cold 
and  cowardly  cruelty  with  which  I  have  been  left  to  struggle 
in  my  agony,  without  support,  without  counsel,  is  known  ? 
My  blood  will  fall  on  your  heads.  And  when  the  letter  ot 
which  the  Government  knows  is  published,  and  which  is  one  of 
the  proofs  of  the  guilt  of  Dreyfus,  what  will  the  entire  world 
say  to  this  miserable  Parliamentary  tactic,  which  has  prevented 
silence  being  imposed  on  the  pack  of  hounds  by  some  energetic 
words  ? 

I  utter  the  French  cry,  "  Haro  to  me,  my  prince  !  To  my 
rescue  !  "  I  address  it  to  you,  M.  le  President,  who,  before  being 
the  Chief  of  State,  are  an  honest  man,  and  who  ought  to  be 
profoundly  moved  in  the  depths  of  your  soul  by  the  cowardice 
that  you  see. 

Let  them  defend  me,  and  I  will  send  back  the  paper  to  the 
Minister  of  War  without  anyone  in  the  world  having  laid  eyes 
on  it ;  but  should  they  not  defend  me — for  I  can  wait  no  longer 
— I  will  shrink  at  nothing  to  defend  and  avenge  my  honour  so 
shamefully  sacrificed. 

I  am,  etc., 

ESTERHAZY. 


The  three  letters  were  odious.  What  can  be 
thought,  in  fact,  of  an  officer  trying  to  exercise 
over  the  Chief  of  State  a  real  extortion  by  this 
threat  of  recourse  to  a  foreign  sovereign,  and  to 
divulge  secrets  of  a  nature  to  bring  about  inter- 
national complications  ? 

They  were  odious  in  still  another  point  of  view  ; 
for  they  conveyed  the  idea  that  the  document 
which  Esterhazy  claimed  to  have  in  his  possession 
had  been  taken  from  the  Minister  of  War  by 
M.  Picquart,  and  stolen  from  his  house  by  a 
woman.  The  object  was  to  ruin  the  Colonel,  and 

2  B  2 


372  APPENDIX. 

soon  after  they  tried  to  further  compromise  him 
by  sending  to  Picquart's  address  in  Tunis  two  false 
telegrams,  one  signed  "  Blanche,"  the  other 
"  Speranza  "  ;  but,  in  fact,  they  reached  Madame  X, 
one  of  his  friends,  and  unjustly  aroused  suspicions 
which  had  grave  consequences  for  her. 

M.  Du  Paty  de  Clam  knew,  however — if  we  can 
believe  General  Roget  and  Commandant  Cuignet 
— what  to  think  about  the  delivery  of  the  "  docu- 
ment liberateur." 

General  Roget  said  : — 

For  myself,  I  am  persuaded  that  the  paper,  called  "  document 
liberateur,"  was  given  to  Esterhazy  by  Du  Paty. 

I  am  persuaded,  also,  that  it  is  a  paper  which  he  had  kept 
from  the  trial  of  1894. 

I  recall,  to  establish  this  assertion,  the  following  facts : 

When  the  newspapers,  at  the  beginning  of  the  Esterhazy 
affair,  began  to  speak  of  the  paper  in  question,  the  following 
conversation  took  place  in  the  offices  of  General  Gonse, 
between  the  General,  Henry,  and  Du  Paty. 

General  Gonse  asked  what  could  be  the  paper  of  which 
Esterhazy  spoke,  and  they  tried  to  imagine  what  it  was  about, 
when  Du  Paty  said  incidentally,  "  Unless  it  is  the  paper  '  That 
scoundrel  of  a  D.  .  .  ."  Now,  neither  General  Gonse,  nor 
Henry,  nor  anyone,  would  have  thought  naturally  of  this  paper. 

Henry  even  said  immediately :  "  What  could  he  do  with 
that  paper?  And  in  what  way  would  it  establish  his  inno- 
cence ? " 

It  was  the  astonishment  expressed  by  Henry  in  this  instance 
which  made  me  remember  it  when  I  reminded  him  of  it  in 
making  my  examination ;  and  I  obtained  confirmation  of  it 
from  General  Gonse. 

Commandant  Guignet :  "  The  veiled  woman  is  no  other  than 
Du  Paty." 

M.  Du  Paty  knew  what  to  believe  also  in  regard  to  the 
letters  themselves,  sent  to  the  President  of  the  Republic. 


APPENDIX.  373 

Listen  to  the  official  report  of  the  confrontation 
which  took  place  between  him  and  Esterhazy,  the 
24th  of  August,  1898,  before  the  Examining  Council 
presided  over  by  General  Florentin. 

The  witness  (Du  Paty  de  Clam).  Esterhazy  wished  to 
write  to  the  Emperor  of  Germany ;  I  told  him  that  he  had 
better  write  to  the  President  of  the  Republic,  who  was  the 
father  of  all  the  French  people.  This  letter,  I  know  it,  as  I  took 
a  copy  of  it  later  at  the  Ministry  of  War.  Esterhazy  told  me 
that  it  had  been  dictated  to  him. 

M.  Esterhazy.— I  want  the  Lieutenant-Colonel  to  tell  who 
dictated  it  to  me. 

The  Witness. — Ah!  I  do  not  know!  Would  you  say 
that  it  was  I  ? 

M.  Esterhazy.— Tell  the  truth. 

The  Witness. — It  was  not  I. 

M.  Esterhazy.  — Then,  how  did  matters  transpire  ? 

The  Witness. — He  wanted  to  look  for  foreign  aid,  from  his 
relatives,  and  to  ask  the  German  Emperor  through  them  if  he 
had  ever  had  relations  with  him,  and  to  beg  him  to  defend  his 
honour  as  a  member  of  an  order  of  which  this  sovereign  was 
grand  master. 

M.  Esterhazy. — That  is  it !  I  called  upon  the  German 
Emperor  as  a  vassal.  Having  decided  to  commit  suicide,  I 
wished  first  to  call  on  all  those  who  had  any  interest  in  de- 
fending an  Esterhazy. 

The  Witness. — Yes,  it  was  then  that  I  turned  him  away 
from  this  idea,  and  made  him  write  to  the  President  of  the 
Republic. 

The  President. — But  these  letters  contained  a  sentiment  of 
a  threat  ? 

The  Witness. — In  my  opinion,  Esterhazy  was  then  in  a 
rather  queer  mental  condition.  I  saw  the  letter  at  the  Ministry, 
and  told  him  that  this  letter,  which  he  declared  had  been  dictated 
to  him,  was  crazy.  Certainly  it  was  not  I  who  dictated  it  to 
him. 

The  President. — But,  then  who  did  dictate  it  to  him  ?     And 


374  APPENDIX. 


furthermore,  if  it  was  dictated  to  him,  what  could  have  been  his 
state  of  mind  when  drawing  up  this  letter  ? 

The  Witness. — It  was  not  I.  Esterhazy  was  admirably 
informed ;  but  everything  that  he  was  told  was  of  a  nature  to 
discourage  him.  They  wished,  he  said,  to  ruin  above  all  Du 
Paty  and  General  de  Boisdeffre.  As  to  making  known  to  the 
Council  if  my  relations  with  Esterhazy  were  ordered  or  were 
only  a  personal  affair,  I  refuse  to  reply  before  Esterhazy. 

The  President. — In  any  case,  what  did  you  do  personally, 
and  in  what  measure  were  you  a  party  to  the  matter  ? 

The  Witness. — As  far  as  relates  to  the  articles  for  the 
newspapers,  he  was  assisted  in  his  reply  to  the  article  "  Vidi." 
I  even  corrected  the  reply. 

The  President. —He  did  not  act  alone,  then,  but  with  the 
help  of  officers  in  the  active  army  ? 
The  Witness.— Yes. 

The  President. — We  need  to  know  in  what  measure  he  was 
guided,  and,  therefore,  responsible. 

The  Witness. — Esterhazy  never  knew  that  he  was  defended 
by  the  General  Staff,  but  only  by  individuals;  I  was  one  of 
those  most  interested  in  the  manifestation  of  the  truth,  and  that 
is  why  I  helped  him.  I  did  not  see  the  letter  to  the  President 
of  the  Republic  until  I  saw  it  at  the  Ministry,  after  it  had  been 
received  there. 

The  President. — You  approved  of  sending  this  letter  ? 
The  Witness. — Yes;   and  I  gave  him   the    framework    or 
substance.       But  after  having  read  the  letter  I    found  fault 
with  the  composition. 

M.  Esterhazy. — But,  then,  tell  the  truth  !      Say  how  these 
letters  were  dictated ! 

The  Witness. — I  say  that  I  do  not  know. 
The  President. — Was  it  you  who  inspired  what  the  threat 
contains  ? 

The  Witness. — He  spoke  to  me  of  writing  it. 
The  President. — You  do  not  know  who  dictated  it  ? 
The  Witness. — No. 

The  President  to  Esterhazy. — Where  were  they  written  ? 
Esterhazy. — One  back  of  the  Caulaincourt  bridge  ;  another 
at  the  Invalides  bridge ;  I  do  not  know  where  the  third  was 


APPENDIX.  375 

written.     I  wrote  them  with  a  pencil  at  the  dictation  of  some- 
one ;  I  recopied  them  quietly  at  home. 

The  President  to  Esterhazy. — Do  you  know  if  Du  Paty 
knew  this  someone  ? 

Esterhazy. — Yes ;  the  colonel  knew  him. 

The  Witness. — I  knew  him ;  I  do  not  say  that  I  did  not, 
not  being  a  sneak.  Besides,  I  only  knew  from  Esterhazy  that 
they  had  been  dictated  to  him. 

Esterhazy. — I  beg  the  colonel  to  say  that  he  knew  the 
author  of  the  letter — that  he  knew  him  as  well  as  I  did ;  that 
it  is  absolutely  exact  that  these  letters  were  dictated  by  some- 
one he  knew,  as  well  as  the  article  "  Dixi"  (in  the  Libre  Parole). 

The  President  to  the  Witness. — I  ask  you  the  question. 

The  Witness. — I  have  said  all  that  I  had  to  say. 

The  President. — Then,  if  you  only  knew  it  from  Esterhazy, 
it  is  not  your  testimony.  You  only  repeat  the  assertions  of 
Esterhazy  ? 

The  Witness.— It  is  impossible  that  the  article  "Dixi" 
should  have  been  done  by  Esterhazy ;  therefore,  it  was  given 
him. 

The  President. — That  is  not  testimony,  but  an  opinion. 
We  do  not  need  it. 

The  Witness. —  I  have  nothing  to  say. 

The  President. — To  resume  or  sum  up,  you  aided  Com- 
mandant Esterhazy.  Was  it  on  your  initiative  ? 

The  Witness. — I  do  not  wish  to  say  before  Esterhazy. 

The  President. — Does  Esterhazy  lie  in  saying  that  the  letter 
was  dictated  to  him  ? 

The  Witness. — He  does  not  lie  ...  or  rather  ...  I  with- 
draw what  I  said. 

Esterhazy. — I  assert  that  the  article  was  brought  to  me  all 
written,  and  that  the  letters  were  dictated  to  me. 

The  Witness. — I  am  sure  that  he  tells  the  truth  as  far  as 
the  article  is  concerned.  As  for  the  letters,  I  do  not  know.  . . 
I  do  not  dare  to  confirm  the  statement  of  the  Commandant,  I 
do  not  say  the  contrary. 

Du  Paty  de  Clam  had  then  taken  an  undeniable 
part  in  the  drawing  up  of  the  three  letters,  which, 


376  APPENDIX. 

instead  of  bringing  upon  their  signer  an  immediate 
punishment,  had  a  contrary  result — to  make  him 
obtain  the  satisfaction  he  desired. 

This  satisfaction  was  granted  him  by  the  publi- 
cation of  an  official  note,  through  the  Agence 
Havas  (News  Agency)  on  November  Qth  (the  last 
letter  was  dated  the  5th).  The  President  of  the 
Council  and  the  Minister  of  War  informed  the 
Council  of  the  intention  of  MM.  Castelin  and 
Mirman,  deputies,  to  put  them  a  question  relative 
to  the  polemics  of  the  Press  engaged  in  the  Dreyfus 
affair.  M.  Meline  and  General  Billot  indicated  to 
the  Council  the  reply  that  they  made  ;  "  Captain 
Dreyfus  has  been  regularly  and  justly  condemned 
by  the  Council  of  War.  The  condemnation  is  in 
force  with  its  full  effect  ;  it  can  only  be  modified 
or  weakened  by  a  decree  for  revision,"  etc. 

Esterhazy,  finding  himself  covered  by  this  con- 
firmation of  the  guilt  of  Dreyfus,  returned  on  the 
1 4th  the  paper  which  he  had  threatened  to  use ; 
and  the  Chief  of  the  Cabinet  of  the  Minister  of 
War  merely  acknowledged  the  receipt  of  it  on 
the  1 6th. 

But  on  the  i6th  M.  Mathieu  Dreyfus,  brother  of 
the  condemned,  publicly  denounced  him  as  the 
author  of  the  bordereau. 

The  same  day  Esterhazy  wrote  to  General 
Billot  : 

M.  le  Minister,  I  read  in  the  journals  this  morning  the  in- 
famous accusation  brought  against  me.  I  ask  you  to  cause  an 
investigation,  and  I  hold  myself  in  readiness  to  reply  to  all 
accusations. 


APPENDIX.  377 

An  investigation  was,  in  fact,  ordered,  and  con- 
fided to  General  de  Pellieux. 

What  is,  from  this  moment,  the  attitude  of  Henry 
and  Du  Paty  de  Clam  ? 

Esterhazy's  deposition  : 

In  the  last  days  of  October  I  received  from  Colonel  Du 
Paty  de  Clam  a  grille  intended  for  correspondence  either  with 
him  or  Colonel  Henry  in  case  of  need ;  it  is  that  seized  by 
M.  Bertulus. 

November  i6th,  I  read  in  the  morning  the  denunciation  of 
M.  Mathieu  Dreyfus. 

I  go  at  once  to  the  Governor  of  Paris  and  inform  him  that 
I  shall  at  once  demand  an  investigation  of  the  Minister. 

There  I  am  notified  that  General  de  Pellieux  will  be 
charged  with  the  investigation ;  this  inquest  is  opened ;  my 
cousin  arrived  suddenly,  and  I  was  foolish  enough  to  use  him  as 
intermediary ;  but  the  real  intermediary  during  all  this  time  has  been 
Mdlle.  Pays.  After  the  beginning  of  the  inquest,  I  was  informed 
every  evening  of  what  had  been  done  through  the  day  ;  I  would 
call  attention  to  the  fact  that  results  of  an  inquest  cannot  be 
communicated  to  officers  of  a  grade  so  low  as  Colonel  Henry 
and  Colonel  Du  Paty  occupied;  they  can  only  be  communicated 
to  general  officers ;  General  de  Pellieux  could  not  inform  his 
officers  of  an  inferior  grade  of  his  investigations.  Therefore, 
the  results  of  this  inquest  were  transmitted  to  me  regularly  only 
under  the  form  of  prescription,  of  what  I  must  say  when 
questioned.  I  received  every  day  written  prescriptions,  and  I 
transmitted  myself  observations  and  remarks  intended  as  replies 
to  the  communications  made  to  me. 

I  had  received  the  order  to  burn  these  notes  as  they  were 
received  ;  so  I  burnt  a  great  many. 

Most  fortunately,  and  without  saying  anything  to  me  about 
it,  Mdlle.  Pays  put  several  of  them  aside. 

Here  is  one  which  was  among  the  papers  remitted  to  the 
"  concierge";  it  is  a  note  which  Colonel  Du  Paty  has  admitted 
to  come  from  him. 

At  that  time  I  had  written  that  it  was  necessary  that  all 


378 


APPENDIX. 


officers — at  least,  the  principal  ones  who  had  been  mixed  up  in 
the  Dreyfus  affair— should  come  to  testify  before  the  General. 
Colonel  Du  Paty  had  received  a  summons,  and,  before  appearing, 
he  wrote  me  the  note  in  question. 

This  note  proves  that  all  evidence  given  before  General  de 
Pellieux  was  made  in  accordance  with  my  wishes  :— 

"  In  case  General  de  Pellieux  should  ask  me  if  I  have  had 
any  relations  with  you,  I  have  the  intention  to  tell  him  this, 
which  is  perceptibly  true:  As  soon  as  we  were  informed 
anonymously  of  the  plot  against  Commander  Esterhazy,  I 
realised  the  importance  of  warning  him  so  as  to  prevent 
some  desperate  act  So  I  put  myself  in  communication 
with  him  by  means  which  I  wish  to  keep  secret,  so  as 
not  to  compromise  third  parties,  to  whom  I  am 
tied  by  my  word  of  honour.  I  may  say,  however, 
that  the  veiled  lady  is  totally  ignorant  of  these  relations.  My 
relations  with  Commander  Esterhazy  have  had  the  effect  of 
preventing  him  from  taking  extreme  measures,  for  he  had  been 
warned  on  his  side.  As  soon  as  I  knew  that  he  had  in  his 
possession  a  secret  document,  all  my  efforts  tended  towards 
making  him  give  it  up,  in  appealing  to  his  patriotic  sentiments  ; 
and  I  must  say  that  I  succeeded  in  this  without  any  difficulty. 
So  my  intervention  has  served  to  moderate  an  exasperation.  I 
have  abstained  from  getting  him  to  communicate  anything  of  a 
secret  character.  The  information  of  that  sort  which  he  may 
have  had  he  received  from  another  source.  I  know  nothing 
about  the  campaign  against  Picquart. 

"  Besides,  General  Boisdeffre  knows  that  I  have  been  in 
indirect  communication  with  Commander  Esterhazy.  From 
the  moment  that  Commander  Esterhazy  has  had  supporters 
and  a  counsel,  and  has  written  to  the  newspapers,  my  relations 
become  useless.  As  he  has  taken  an  engagement  with  me,  I 
will  release  him  from  his  word  of  honour,  if  you  wish  it.  For 
without  that  he  will  think  himself  obliged  to  deny  the  relations, 
but  his  word,  like  mine,  will  stand. 

"  Consequently : 

"  i°. — As  long  as  you  have  no  official  letter  from  me,  you 
are  not  supposed  to  know  me.  2°. — Keep  silent  with  regard 
to  the  relations  we  have  had  together.  3°. — Maintain  that 


APPENDIX.  379 

these  relations  had  no  other  object  except  to  encourage  you,  to 
advise  moderation,  and  to  appeal  to  your  good  sentiments  to 
give  up  the  document,  and  that  they  had  nothing  whatever  to 
do  with  the  affair  of  the  veiled  woman.  4°. — Never  have  I 
divulged  anything  confidential  to  you ;  and  it  is  not  I  who  have 
denounced  Picquart  to  you. 

"This  is  the  ground  upon  which  I  will  place  myself;  bear 
well  in  mind  all  I  mark  in  red,  and  destroy.  You  understand 
how  important  it  is  to  agree  perfectly,  for  you  as  well  as  myself. 
All  is  well ;  the  person  who  has  fetched  the  famous  letters  from 
Picquart,  written  in  an  agreed  style,  is  precisely  the  author  of 
the  telegram  signed  '  Blanche,'  which  is  in  his  handwriting  a  little 
disguised." 

M.  Du  Paty  de  Clam  .admitted  before  General 
Renouard,  the  Qth  of  September,  1898,  that  he 
wrote  this  note. 

Q.; —  .  .  .  Esterhazy  has  received  directions  for  the  ex- 
amination which  he  was  to  undergo  before  General  de 
Pellieux.  .  .  .  ? 

A. — Quite  so ;  I  told  Esterhazy  not  to  speak  of  our  rela- 
tions. I  told  him  that  I  could  not  see  him,  and  that  if  he  were 
interrogated  in  reference  to  our  interviews,  he  was  to  say  he 
was  bound  by  promises  ;  and  if  they  insisted,  he  was  to  ask  to 
be  first  of  all  released  from  his  word  of  honour. 

Q^— This  letter  was  in  two  handwritings  ? 

A. — Yes ;  I  had  commenced  to  write  in  capitals,  and  after- 
wards I  went  back  to  my  usual  handwriting.  This  note  is 
from  me. 

He  has  recognised  it  also  before  the  Criminal 
Chamber,  the  I2th  of  January,  1899. 

These  are  the  conditions  under  which  the  pre- 
liminary inquiry  was  made  by  General  de  Pellieux  t 
who,  among    other   witnesses,   heard    Lieutenant- 
Colonel  Picquart,  called  back  from  Tunis. 


380  APPENDIX. 

An  order  was  given  on  the  4th  of  December 
to  make  an  inquiry,  and  this  inquiry  Commander 
Ravary,  reporter  to  the  first  Court-Martial,  made 
on  the  7th. 

We  will  let  Esterhazy  speak. 

.  .  .  The  inquiry  has  commenced  more  complete,  and  was 
longer  and  more  detailed  than  the  inquiry  made  by  General  de 
Pellieux,  but  it  was  made  in  the  same  manner — that  is  to  say,  I 
received  every  day  formal  instructions  about  what  I  was  to  say. 
Once,  to  obey  my  counsel,  M.  Tezenas  (who  at  that  time  did 
not  know  what  was  going  on) — I  had  taken  a  step  of  my  own 
accord — I  was  told  to  mind  my  own  business.  Commander 
Ravary  was  called  before  the  General  Staff,  where  certain 
documents  were  communicated  to  him.  Every  day  also  I  was 
informed  of  the  proceedings  of  the  inquiry,  and  told  what  I  was 
to  say  always  by  the  same  persons,  either  Colonel  Henry  or 
Commander  Du  Paty;  but  it  is  quite  evident  that  these  com- 
munications concerning  the  details  of  the  inquiry  were  not 
made  to  these  officers  who  were  considered  absolutely  as 
witnesses.  They  were  made  to  the  chief  of  the  General  Staff, 
or,  which  is  more  probable,  to  the  head-clerk  of  the  General 
Staff,  to  be  remitted  to  the  chief  of  the  General  Staff.  It  is 
interesting  to  me  to  state  that  these  communications  which 
were  made  in  much  higher  quarters  than  to  the  officers  reached 
me  the  same  evening. 

We  must  here  insist  upon  the  measures  which, 
in  the  offices  of  the  General  Staff,  at  least  between 
Henry  and  Du  Paty  de  Clam,  had  been  contrived 
to  save  Esterhazy. 

Perquisitions  had  been  made  neither  at  his  house 
nor  at  the  house  of  Mdlle.  Pays,  his  mistress. 

It  is  true  that,  warned  since  several  weeks,  he 
had  had  time  to  take  precautions  ;  and  he  himself, 
in  his  letter  to  the  Minister  of  War  dated  October 


APPENDIX.  381 

25th,  1897,  dictated  by  Du  Paty  de  Clam,  had 
anticipated  the  suspicions  which  his  relations  with 
a  foreign  military  attache  and  the  resemblance  of 
his  handwriting  and  that  of  the  bordereau  might 
have  aroused. 

In  this  letter  he  had  said,  on  the  one  hand  : — 

My  embarrassed  situation  is  known  since  a  long  time  among 
the  Jewish  society,  my  family  relations  in  the  diplomatic  world, 

my  few  but  very  open  relations  with  Colonel  de  Schw who 

has  known  my  parents  at  Carlsbad,  all  this  was  calculated  to 
make  me  the  victim  of  this  frightful  plot. 

He  had  said,  on  the  other  hand  : — 

In  one  of  the  documents  published  in  this  connection  I 
read  that  the  bordereau  had  been  written  on  tracing 
paper.  This  naturally  led  me  to  think  that  someone  had 
procured  some  of  my  handwriting,  and  that  Dreyfus  had 
used  it  to  manufacture  his  occult  correspondence,  and 
to  turn  suspicions  towards  me  in  case  of  surprise.  I  did 
not  know  Dreyfus;  but,  unfortunately  for  me,  my  handwriting 
had  been  around  at  bankers,  money-lenders,  jewellers,  and  other 
people  with  whom  Dreyfus  might  be  acquainted.  Nevertheless, 
this  explanation  did  not  satisfy  me.  At  the  time  of  the  duels, 
Mores,  Cremier  Mayer,  &c.,  I  received  numerous  letters 
from  Israelite  officers,  to  whom  I  replied  by  a  word  of  thanks. 
Still,  this  explanation  did  not  satisfy  me  any  better,  for  it 
was  necessary  to  have  a  great  deal  of  my  writing 
to  have  the  words  of  the  bordereau.  I  remembered 
then  that  in  the  beginning  of  i8(,  >  a  time  I  can  very  well 
remember  for  personal  reasons,  I  received  from  an  officer 
of  the  Ministry  a  request  for  circumstantial  information  on  the 
part  taken  during  the  campaign  of  Crimea  by  the  cavalry 
brigade  that  my  father  commanded.  This  officer  had  a  work 
to  prepare  on  the  operations  around  Eupatoria.  I  made  quite 
voluminous  notes  and  sent  them  to  him,  although,  at  his  request, 
I  did  not  address  them  to  the  Ministry.  It  is  possible  that 


382  APPENDIX. 

they  fell  under  the  eyes  or  into  the  hands  of  Dreyfus,  either  by 
being  lent  to  him,  or  otherwise.  It  would  be  easy  to  find  out 
through  this  officer,  Capt.  Bro. 

This  method  of  defence  had  been  suggested  to 
Esterhazy  by  Du  Paty  de  Clam,  who  recalled 
having,  as  legal  police  officer,  on  October  i8th, 
shown  the  photograph  of  some  words  of  the 
bordereau  to  Dreyfus,  who  had  replied :  "  It  seems 
to  me  vaguely  that  this  is  the  writing  of  Bro." 

In  consequence,  Esterhazy  had  sent  to  Toulouse, 
where  Captain  Bro  was  not  found,  a  letter  and  a 
telegram,  on  the  pretence  of  asking  that  officer  if 
he  had  not  sent  him  early  in  1894,  to  the  house  of 
a  friend  living  in  the  Rue  de  Lafayette  or  Rue 
Chateaudun — M.  Hadamard  lives  in  the  Rue 
Chateaudun — some  information  on  the  Crimean 
war.  Captain  Bro,  whom  the  letter  and  telegram 
finally  reached,  was  absolutely  stupefied,  and 
replied  to  Esterhazy :  "  None  of  my  friends  or 
acquaintances  live  in  the  Rue  de  Chateaudun  ;  not 
having  the  honour  of  knowing  you,  even  by  name, 
I  never  asked  anything  of  you,  either  verbally  or 
in  writing." 

Dreyfus,  therefore,  had  never  been  lent  by 
Captain  Bro  the  pretended  notice,  to  trace  the 
writing  of  Esterhazy. 

But,  in  the  information  against  Dreyfus,  this 
hypothesis  of  tracery  remained  ;  and  that  is  what, 
in  part  at  least,  led  the  experts  Belhomme,  Couard, 
and  Varinard,  commissioned  November  I4th  by 
Commandant  Ravary,  to  conclude  that  the  bordereau 


APPENDIX."  383 

contained  "  an  awkward    imitation  of  Esterhazy's 
handwriting,"  but  "  was  not  his  work." 

Nevertheless,  in  the  course  of  the  expertise^  and 
notwithstanding  the  protection  by  which  he  was 
surrounded,  Esterhazy  was  extremely  disturbed, 
as  is  proved  by  the  draft  of  a  letter  found  in  a 
Japanese  vase  at  the  house  of  Mdlle.  Pays  by  the 
Judge  of  Instruction  Bertulus. 

What  must  I  do  later,  if  the  experts  refuse  to  conclude  as 
you  had  hoped?  Must  I  ask,  as  Tezenas  wished  at  first,  as  is 
my  right,  that  the  experts  should  show  the  writing  to  be  trace- 
work  ?  Why  have  not  Gharavay  or  Varinard,  whom  you  know 
decided  for  me  in  the  Boulancy  letter,  manifestly  a  trick  ? 
Belhomme  is  an  idiot ;  you  have  only  to  look  at  him.  All  these 
people  are  going  to  assassinate  me.  Can  it  not  be  proved,  how- 
ever, to  R  avary  and  the  experts  that  I  did  not  write  the  terms 
of  the  great  letter — the  Uhlan  letter — to  Boulancy  ?  If  the 
experts  conclude  that  the  writing  is  mine,  it  is  impossible  for 
me,  in  my  defence,  not  to  be  forced  to  show  that  Dreyfus  is  the 
author  of  the  bordereau.  You  understand,  then,  that  if  you  are 
really  masters  of  the  examination  and  of  the  experts,  I  can  only 
report  absolutely  to  you,  but  that,  if  that  escapes  you,  as  I  fear, 
I  am  absolutely  bound  to  prove  that  the  bordereau  is  traced  by 
Dreyfus  from  my  handwriting. 

December  3ist,  Commandant  Ravary  prepared 
a  report,  and,  alluding  to  the  schemes  practised, 
not  by  those  who,  like  Henry  and  Du  Paty  de 
Clam,  wished  at  any  price  to  save  Esterhazy,  but 
by  those  who,  with  the  Dreyfus  family,  tried  to 
obtain  the  revision  of  the  trial  of  1894,  he  finished 
by  these  words  : 

To  sum  up,  what  remains  of  this  sad  affair,  so  wisely 
planned  ?  A  painful  impression  which  will  have  a  sad  echo  in 


384  APPENDIX. 

all  truly  French  hearts.  Of  the  actors  in  the  scene,  some  came 
to  the  front,  and  others  remained  in  the  corridors,  but  all  the 
means  used  had  the  same  object,  the  revision  of  a  judgment 
legally  and  justly  rendered. 

The  Council  of  War,  before  which  Mme.  Dreyfus 
wished  to  intervene,  rejected  the  argument  presented 
by  her  counsel,  saying  : 

"  In  that  which  concerns  Madame  Dreyfus  : 

"  Whereas  the  Council  of  War  is  not  engaged  in 
the  affair  of  ex-Captain  Dreyfus,  upon  which  it  has 
justly  and  legally  decided  ; 

"  That  the  Council  of  War  cannot  admit  Madame 
Dreyfus  as  party  for  the  plaintiff  at  the  debates 
without  breaking  its  rules  ; 

"That  in  case  of  closed  doors  the  Council  can- 
not authorise  Madame  Dreyfus,  any  more  than  her 
counsel,  to  take  part  in  the  debates." 

From  the  moment  when  it  declared  the  guilt  of 
Dreyfus  to  be  "justly  and  legally  decided,"  the 
Council  of  War  could  only  acquit  Esterhazy. 

This  was  done  January  nth,  1898. 

On  the  1 2th,  Esterhazy  wrote  to  a  General  that 
he  did  not  wish  to  name,  a  letter,  of  which  the 
draft  was  seized  by  M.  Bertulus : 

My  General, — I  write  you  to  express  very  badly — for  I  do 
not  find  words  to  express  to  you  what  I  feel — all  the  profound, 
all  the  infinite  gratitude  that  I  have  in  my  heart  for  you.  If  I 
have  not  succumbed  in  this  monstrous  campaign,  it  is  to  you, 
and  you  alone,  that  I  owe  it 


APPENDIX.  385 

THE  TALE  OF  FORGERIES. 
(From  the  Report  of  M.  Ballot-Beanpr^ 

The  Henry  forgery  was  not  the  last  of  which 
Dreyfus  had  to  complain. 

Two  others  have  yet  to  be  mentioned. 

M.  Cavaignac,  the  7th  of  July,  1898,  had— 
besides  the  Henry  forgery — indicated  with  the 

paper,  "This  scoundrel  of  D ,"  as  proof  of 

guilt,  a  letter  (of  the  secret  dossier),  on  the  subject 
of  which  Commandant  Cuignet  explained  him- 
self before  the  Criminal  Chamber  of  the  Court  of 
Cassation. 

This  paper  is  an  authentic  letter,  written  with  black  pencil  on 
paper  "quadrille,"  by  Agent  B.  .  .  to  Agent  A.  .  .  Its 
text  is  as  follows : 

"  My  very  dear  friend,  I  finished  by  calling  the  doctor,  who 
forbade  me  to  go  out.  So  not  being  able  to  go  to  you 

to-morrow,  I  beg  you  to  come  to  me  in  the  morning,  as  D 

has  brought  me  many  interesting  things,  and  we  must  share  the 
work,  having  only  ten  days'  time.  Try  then  to  tell  (sic)  to  ... 
that  you  cannot  go  up. 

"  Sincerely  yours,        (Signature)." 

What  constitutes  the  suspicious  character  of  this  letter,  which 
bears  the  date  of  March,  1894  (date  of  the  Information  Depart- 
ment), is  that  the  initial  D  appears  to  cover  another  initial  or 
capital  letter  which  has  been  erased  with  rubber. 

Further,  the  space  which  separates  this  initial  from  the  first 
letter  of  the  following  word  appears  to  me  to  be  an  absolutely 
unusual  distance,  when  one  limits  himself  to  putting  only  an 
initial. 

2    C 


386  APPENDIX. 

It  seems  to  me  that  this  space  had  been  filled  by  letters 
following  the  capital  letter  which  seemed  to  have  been  erased. 

Also  the  three  dots  which  follow  the  letter  D . . .  seem  large 
and  bent,  much  larger  in  any  case  than  the  punctuation  points 
found  in  the  authentic  text. 

Finally,  by  examining  the  paper  with  a  magnifying  glass,  it 
appears  that  the  near  quadrillage  of  the  letter  which  seemed  to 
have  been  rubbed  out,  had  also  been  touched  by  the  eraser, 
which  confirms  my  opinion  that  a  rubber  had  been  used  to  erase 
a  letter  or  a  word. 

It  also  seems  to  me,  in  continuing  my  examination  with  the 
glass,  that  the  points  following  the  initial  "  D  "  cover  letters  of 
which  I  perceive  some  traces  without  being  able  to  reconstruct 
the  letters. 

For  these  different  reasons,  the  paper,  of  which  the  whole  of 
the  text  is  authentic,  appears  eminently  suspicious. 

M.  Bertillon  examined  this  document.  He 
recognised  there,  like  Commandant  Cuignet,  "  an 
erasure  or  rubbing  out,  followed  by  retouches." 
He  believes,  however,  that  under  the  capital  "  D  " 
was  already  another  "  D." 

By  whom  then  were  these  alterations  made  ?  It 
is  evident  that  someone  wished  to  fraudulently 
create  a  new  charge  against  Dreyfus. 

That  is  also  what  some  one  wished  to  do  with 
the  paper  (forty-four  of  the  secret  dossier),  which 
gave  rise  to  three  depositions  by  the  Secretary  of 
the  Embassy — M.  Paleologue.  On  November  2nd, 
1894,  at  four  minutes  past  three  in  the  afternoon, 
when  the  arrest  of  Dreyfus  had,  since  the  morning 
of  the  day  before,  been  announced  by  the  Press,  a 
cipher  despatch,  placed  in  the  telegraph-office  of  the 
Rue  Montaigne,  was  addressed  to  the  Government 
by  a  military  attache.  The  tracing  was  taken  at 


APPENDIX.  387 

the  Administration  of  Telegraphs  on  thin  bank 
post  paper,  giving  the  complete  reproduction  of 
the  original,  which  was  sent  back  to  the  telegraph- 
office  of  the  Rue  Montaigne,  to  be  the  following 
year  delivered  to  the  Ministry  of  Posts  and  Tele- 
graphs and  destroyed,  in  conformity  to  the  rules. 

No  doubt  of  its  authenticity  is  possible.  No 
doubt,  either,  of  its  translation.  This  is  what 
results  from  the  report  by  Messrs.  Chamoin  and 
Commandant  Cuignet,  delegates  of  the  Ministry  of 
War,  and  M.  Pal6ologue,  Secretary  of  Embassy, 
delegate  of  the  Ministry  of  Foreign  Affairs.  The 
translation,  made  together  by  the  three  delegates 
mentioned,  brought  out  the  following  version  :  "  If 
Captain  Dreyfus  has  not  had  relations  with  you,  it 
would  be  well  to  charge  the  Ambassador  to  publish 
an  official  denial,  in  order  to  avoid  the  comments 
of  the  press." 

But,  in  the  beginning,  the  key  of  the  cipher 
was  not  known  ;  they  hesitated  on  the  last  words  ; 
and  the  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs  had  given 
to  the  Information  Department,  under  all  reserve, 
a  first  version,  which  finished  thus,  "  official  denial, 
our  emissary  warned."  A  few  days  after,  the  Chief 
of  the  Office,  Colonel  Sandherr,  received  the  exact 
version :  "  Official  denial,  in  order  to  avoid  the 
comments  of  the  press." 

This  definite  wording  M.  Paleologue  declared  to 
have  "  seen  in  the  hands  of  Colonel  Sandherr  and 
to  have  spoken  to  him  of  it  at  different  times." 

But,  at  the  Ministry  of  War,  they  have  no  longer 

2   C   2 


388  APPENDIX. 

either  the  second  version  or  even  the  first ;    both 
have  disappeared. 

And  M.  Paleologue  said  before  the  Criminal 
Chamber,  January  pth  : 

The  last  days  of  April  or  the  first  days  of  May  1898, 
Colonel  Henry  came  to  see  me  at  the  Ministry  of  Foreign 
Affairs  and  asked  me,  with  a  slightly  embarrassed  air,  if  I  could 
procure  for  him  a  copy  of  a  telegram  of  November  2nd,  1891. 
I  did  not  understand  his  question  very  well  at  first,  and  I  replied, 
"  But  you  have  it — that  document !  I  saw  it  in  the  hands  of 
Sandherr ;  what  has  become  of  it  ? "  Henry  answered,  "  I  do 
not  know ;  we  do  not  find  it.  The  papers  of  the  dossier  have 
been  scattered  about  in  several  safes.  In  short  we  haven't  it 
any  longer." 

I  replied  to  him  that  it  did  not  belong  to  me  to  give  him  a 
document  of  that  nature,  and  that  he  had  only  to  request  it  at 
the  Ministry  of  Foreign  Affairs  through  the  Minister  of  War. 
He  asked  me  then  if  I  could  not  at  least  let  him  have  a  copy 
non-officially.  My  reply  was  that  the  writing  of  an  agent  of 
foreign  affairs  would  give  this  piece  an  air  of  authenticity  that  I 
was  not  qualified  to  give.  "  Anyhow,"  I  added,  "  I  have 
recited  this  telegram  to  you  so  many  times  that  I  can  recite  it 
once  more.  You  are  free  to  write  it  from  my  dictation." 

He  took  a  pencil  and  a  sheet  of  paper,  and  wrote  from  my 
dictation  the  words  that  I  indicated.  The  interview  finished 
there. 

What  became  of  the  writing  dictated  to  Henry  by  M.  Paleo- 
logue is  not  known. 

What  is  certain  is  that  General  Gonse,  not  being 
able  to  obtain  from  the  Ministry  of  Posts  and 
Telegraphs  even  the  original,  which,  in  conformity 
with  the  rules,  had  been  destroyed  in  1895,  and 
not  wishing  to  have  only  a  certified  copy  of  the 
tracing  taken  on  the  thin  bank  post-paper,  called 
on  M.  du  Paty  de  Clam  in  May,  1895,  to  recon- 


APPENDIX.  389 

struct  the  wording  of  the  telegram ;  and  it  is  the 
paper  No.  44  of  the  secret  dossier:  "Captain 
Dreyfus  is  arrested  ;  the  Minister  of  War  has  the 
proof  of  his  relations  with  Germany ;  all  my  pre- 
cautions are  taken." 

M.  Paleologue  testified  on  March  29th,  before 
the  assembled  Chambers,  that  his  conscience  and 
his  instructions  obliged  him  to  say  that  no  error  of 
memory  could  justify  the  differences  which  existed 
between  the  wording  in  question  and  the  wording 
preserved  at  the  Ministry  of  Foreign  Affairs. 
"  The  piece  No.  44  is  not  only  erroneous,  it  is 
false." 

This  was  another  fraud,  due  to  the  collaboration 
of  Henry  and  Du  Paty  de  Clam,  and  intended  to 
be  a  weapon  against  Dreyfus,  of  a  cipher  despatch 
which  on  the  contrary  was  favourable  to  him,  as  it 
proved  that  the  signer  did  not  know  him. 

What  motives  then  determined  these  two  men 
to  thus  persecute  the  condemned  of  1894  ? 

For  Henry,  a  sentiment  of  personal  interest 
already  shown,  and  perhaps  an  unavowed  com- 
plicity which  bound  his  cause  to  that  of  Esterhazy. 

He  said  in  his  defence  : 

"In  reality,  there  is  only  one  motive  in  my  intervention  in 
Esterhazy's  behalf.  It  consists  in  the  considerations  that 
General  Gonse  pointed  out  to  me  when  he  revealed  the 
Esterhazy  affair  to  me ;  considerations  of  exterior  order  that  I 
exposed  to  the  Court  without  making  them  in  writing,  con- 
siderations of  an  anterior  order,  which  exist,  in  spite  of  what 
General  Roget  says,  in  pretending  that  I  hide  myself  behind 
them,  considerations  the  nature  of  which  is  known,  and  of 
which  no  denial  can  prevent  the  existence.  In  closing,  I  will 


390  APPENDIX. 

say  how  much  I  am  saddened  to  have  been  abandoned  by  my 
chiefs.  Never  would  I  have  believed  that  General  Gonse 
would  disown  me  after  having  pushed  me  ahead.  Never  would 
I  have  believed  that  a  former  Minister,  after  telling  me 
'  You  have  rendered  a  great  service  to  the  country,' 
would  leave  my  call  without  response.  Never  would  I 
have  believed  that  a  general  to  whom  I  devoted  myself  without 
reserve  would  have  abandoned  me  after  having  said  to  'me, 
'  During  my  lifetime  you  will  never  be  sacrificed.'  While 
only  my  military  personality  and  my  career  was  touched,  I 
remained  in  the  greatest  -vis-a-vis  my  chiefs.  To-day  they 
attack  my  honour  by  an  officer  who  dares  to  attack  his  superiors 
in  the  most  inconceivable  manner,  and  accuse  me  for  long 
months  of  things  about  which  I  have  never  been  questioned. 
One  can  believe  that  my  indignation  is  great.  But,  nevertheless, 
in  the  interest  of  my  country,  I  only  defend  myself  in  the 
measure  strictly  necessary  to  explain  my  acts." 

The  acts  are  known,  and  the  revelation  destroys 
all  faith  due  to  the  judgment  inquiry  in  1894. 

If  Dreyfus  was  condemned,  it  was  because 
Henry,  as  delegate  of  the  Minister,  brought  to  the 
Council  of  War  an  impassioned  deposition  from 
the  Information  Department.  It  is  because  Du 
Paty  de  Clam,  after  having  produced  in  the  mind 
of  the  accused  a  veritable  confusion,  brought  to 
bear  upon  the  debates  an  ardour  of  which  Dreyfus 
complained. 

Their  testimony  is  vitiated  by  the  long  series  of 
indefensible  manoeuvres  they  practised  to  assure 
the  acquittal  of  Esterhazy. 


APPENDIX.  391 


COLONEL  PICQUART'S  VINDICATION  OF 
CAPTAIN  DREYFUS. 

(From  the  Report  of  M.  Ballot  Beauprf.) 

It  is  painful  to  be  obliged  to  emphasise  the 
criminal  perversion  of  one  who  wore  the  uniform 
of  our  army,  and  who  without  doubt,  under  other 
conditions,  would  have  worn  it  with  honour.  It  is 
painful  that  even  his  death  has  not  been  able  to 
protect  his  memory  by  the  charity  of  silence.  But 
the  demands  of  truth  and  justice  do  not  allow  of 
this.  The  crime  committed  by  Lieutenant-Colonel 
Henry  has  had  a  bearing  upon  the  entire  Esterhazy 
case  ;  and  how  could  it  have  been  otherwise  ?  If 
it  had  ended  in  the  demonstration  of  Esterhazy's 
guilt,  there  was  at  the  Ministry  of  War  a  document 
the  falsity  of  which  would  have  been  at  once 
apparent  to  the  Minister  and  the  Generals.  In  this 
document  Dreyfus  was  plainly  designated.  And, 
in  connection  with  his  case,  if  Esterhazy  had  been 
found  guilty,  Henry,  as  Chief  of  the  Service,  would 
have  been  compromised  and  doubtless  dishonoured. 

But,  as  far  as  Dreyfus  is  concerned,  do  not  the 
false  documents  constitute  a  new  fact,  which,  in 
breaking  up  the  accusation,  establishes  his  inno- 
cence ?  Was  Henry  a  witness  of  no  importance  in 
the  Dreyfus  affair?  And  if  his  deposition  was 
one  of  the  most  serious,  was  it  at  the  same  time 
sincere  and  veracious  ?  We  would  fain  believe  so, 
but  can  we  ? 


392  APPENDIX. 

This  is  the  same  man  who,  knowing  himself 
to  be  bearing  false  witness,  accuses  others  and 
gives  the  lie  direct  to  Lieutenant-Colonel  Picquart. 
He  is  the  man  who,  while  the  Minister  exhorts 
him  to  tell  the  truth,  swears  eight  consecutive  times 
that  he  did  not  commit  forgery. 

Well,  and  what  rdle  does  he  play  before  the 
Court-Martial  which  condemns  Dreyfus  ?  Major 
Henry  was  delegated  to  bring  forward,  on  behalf 
of  the  Minister,  confidential  information,  which 
could,  should  it  so  happen,  supplement  the  data 
of  the  examination.  If  any  deposition  was  of 
supreme  importance,  assuredly  it  was  this.  There 
is  more,  and  this  is  decisive. 

It  is  certain,  says  the  Keeper  of  the  Seals,  that  the  bordereau 
found  in  1894  by  du  Paty  de  Clam  in  the  hands  of  General 
Gonse,  Sub-chief  of  the  General  Staff,  had  been  brought  to  this 
general  officer  by  Lieutenant-Colonel  Henry,  at  that  time  chief 
of  battalion  and  sub-chief  of  the  Bureau  of  Information. 

And  again,  at  the  time  of  his  arrest,  on  Aug. 
3Oth,  1896,  Lieutenant  Colonel  Henry  declared  to 
General  Roget,  chief  of  staff  of  the  Minister  of 
War,  that  it  was  to  him  that  an  agent,  unnamed, 
had  brought  the  bordereau,  it  having  come,  he 
added,  by  the  "  usual  channel  (la  voie  ordinaire)." 

And  so  the  origin  of  the  bordereau  has  for  its 
only  guarantee  the  word  of  Henry,  the  fabricator  of 
false  documents  ;  and  when  one  hears  the  experts 
give  the  opinion  that  this  particular  document  was 
forged,  one  cannot  help  having  many  anxious 
doubts.  As  long  as  all  was  unknown,  one  had 


APPENDIX.  393 

confidence  in  the  justice  of  the  verdict.  But  as 
revelations  have  come  to  light,  a  cloud  of  objections 
has  arisen,  and  a  deep  uneasiness  has  weighed 
upon  many  a  conscience.  Lieutenant  -  Colonel 
Picquart  had,  on  behalf  of  the  Minister  of 
War,  taken  part  in  the  session  of  the  Dreyfus 
trial.  As  chief  of  the  Information  Bureau,  he 
conducted  the  subsequent  inquiries,  and  he  was 
able  on  all  these  points  to  inform  himself  exhaus- 
tively. Finally  he  made,  with  the  consent  of  the 
government,  an  expost  of  the  circumstances  which 
seemed  to  bring  in  question  the  stability  of  the 
verdict  of  1894.  This  information  was  addressed  in 
confidence  to  the  Minister  of  Justice,  and  it  is 
fitting  that  the  communication  in  question  be 
brought  to  your  knowledge. 

LETTER  FROM  LIEUTENANT-COLONEL  PICQUART  TO  THE 
MINISTER  OF  JUSTICE,  KEEPER  OF  THE  SEALS. 

Paris,  September  i$tb,  1898. 

SIR, 

I  have  the  honour  to  indicate  to  you  the  reasons  upon 
which  I  base  my  deep  and  firm  conviction  of  the  innocence  of 
Dreyfus  : 

First,  I  give  a  summary  of  these  reasons ;  I  shall  pass  later  to 
the  detailed  development  of  each  of  them  in  turn. 

I. — Dreyfus  was  arrested  solely  upon  the  suspicion  of  having 
written  the  bordereau.  When  the  bordereau  came  into  the 
hands  of  the  bureau  of  information,  it  was  supposed  a  priori  and 
unjustly,  that,  in  view  of  the  documents  enumerated  therein,  it 
could  have  been  written  only  by  an  officer  of  the  ministry, 
preferably  by  an  artillery  officer,  and  the  handwritings  of  the 
officers  of  the  general  staff  were  compared  with  that  of  the 
bordereau. 


394  APPENDIX. 

After  some  hesitation,  it  was  found  that  the  writing  of  Dreyfus 
bore  a  likeness  to  that  of  the  bordereau. 

Dreyfus  had  never  been  suspected  before ;  no  previous 
supervision  had  admitted  the  suspicion  of  temptations,  of 
questionable  relations,  of  the  need  of  funds ;  it  had  merely 
been  remarked  that  he  evinced  a  tendency  to  inquire  in- 
discreetly into  what  was  going  on  about  him.  But  this 
tendency  is  not  inexplicable  in  the  case  of  an  officer  on  probation 
who  is  attached  to  the  General  Staff  of  the  Army  for  purposes  of 
self-instruction,  and  who  finds  in  his  position  a  unique  oppor- 
tunity for  familiarizing  himself  with  our  military  organization. 

The  writing  of  the  bordereau  bears  merely  a  resemblance  to 
that  of  Dreyfus.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  identical  with  that  of 
Esterhazy.  The  documents  specified  in  the  bordereau  are,  as  a 
rule,  of  no  small  value.  Dreyfus,  had  he  been  inclined  to 
treason,,  could  have  supplied  himself  much  more.  Moreover, 
the  documents  in  question  bear  no  relation  to  the  particular 
ones  which  Dreyfus  had  in  hand  at  the  time  the  bordereau  was 
written. 

B.  Admitting  Dreyfus  to  be  its  author,  certain  phrases  in  the 
bordereau  are  inexplicable,  for  example,  the  following,  "  Provided 
you  do  not  wish  that  I  should  have  it  copied  In  extenso." 
Dreyfus  had  no  secretary  at  his  disposition;  Esterhazy,  as 
Major,  had  one.  Here  is  a  point  which  can  readily  be  under- 
stood, admitting  the  bordereau  to  be  the  work  of  Esterhazy. 

II. — When  Dreyfus  was  arrested,  in  an  attempt  to  lend  his 
dossier  more  weight,  a  secret  dossier  was  made  up,  and  this  was 
communicated  to  the  judges  of  the  court-martial.  Not  one  of 
these  documents  is  applicable  to  Dreyfus. 

III. — It  has  not  been  possible  to  arrive  at  the  motives  by 
which  Dreyfus  was  actuated ;  he  had  never  manifested  un- 
patriotic feelings ;  he  possessed  a  fortune,  he  had  a  home,  he  led 
a  regular  life. 

IV. — Dreyfus  has  always  protested  his  innocence,  and  more- 
over the  alleged  confession  made  to  Captain  Lebrun-Renault 
was  nothing  more  than  the  result  of  an  interested  move  on  the 
part  of  his  enemies. 

V. — An  attempt  has  been  made  to  prove  that  Dreyfus  was 
continually  in  a  position  to  lay  hands  upon  the  documents 


APPENDIX.  395 

mentioned  in  the  bordereau.  These  documents  were  never 
thoroughly  investigated  when  I  was  attached  to  the  Ministry. 
They  came  altogether,  or  nearly  so,  from  Du  Paty  de  Clam, 
and  were  generally  passed  without  any  supervision.  Moreover, 
they  had  no  value. 

VI. — The  chiefs,  Generals  Billot,  de  Boisdeffre,  and  Gonse, 
have  never  raised  an  objection  to  any  of  the  facts  to  which  I 
drew  their  attention,  with  the  exception  of  the  false  document 
brought  to  the  Ministry  of  Colonies  at  the  beginning  of 
September,  1896,  and  the  false  document  assigned  to  Henry 
which  made  its  appearance  at  the  end  of  October  or  the 
beginning  of  November  of  the  same  year. 

VII. — Henry  and  du  Paty  de  Clam  have  employed  the  most 
culpable  measures  to  emphasize  the  guilt  of  Dreyfus  and  the 
innocence  of  Esterhazy. 

I  now  take  up  in  detail  each  of  the  paragraphs  numbered 
above. 

And  Lieutenant- Colonel  Picquart  then  proceeds 
to  develop  each  of  the  paragraphs  which  we  have 
iust  indicated.  We  are  obliged  to  confine  our- 
selves to  the  reading  of  the  most  interesting 
portions : 

When  it  became  clear  that  there  were  no  other  charges 
against  Dreyfus  but  that  of  the  bordereau,  documents  which 
might  be  applicable  to  him  were  sought  for  among  those  of  the 
service  of  information,  and  of  these  was  formed  a  dossier,  which 
I  propose  to  consider  in  detail. 

This  dossier,  which  had  been  locked  up  in  the  file  belonging 
to  Henry  towards  the  close  of  December,  1894,  and  which  I 
received  from  the  hands  of  Gribelin  towards  the  close  of 
December,  1896,  was  divided  into  two  parts.  The  first,  which 
had  been  communicated  to  the  judges  in  the  council  chamber, 
was  composed  of  four  documents,  accompanied  by  an  ex- 
planatory commentary,  made-up,  as  Colonel  Sandherr  assured 
me,  by  Du  Paty  de  Clam.  The  second  part  of  the  dossier  was 
of  small  value.  It  comprised  seven  or  eight  documents  in  all — 


39^ 


APPENDIX. 


to  specify,  several  photographs,  the  secret  documents,  and 
several  documents  of  no  importance,  having  more  or  less 
reference  to  those  of  the  first  part. 

I  propose  to  take  up  in  succession  the  documents  of  the  first 
part,  indicating,  so  far  as  my  memory  will  admit,  the  terms  of 
the  commentary.  For  the  rest,  I  maintain  that  my  memory  of 
these  facts  is  very  vivid,  by  reason  of  the  profound  impression 
made  upon  me  by  the  sight  of  this  dossier. 

First  document  (torn  in  pieces,  and  then  put  together) :  a 
letter  with  a  note  written  by  a  person  whom  we  will  designate 
by  the  initial  "  A,"  probably  to  his  superiors.  It  was  "  A's " 
custom  to  sketch  such  plans,  which  he  threw  into  the  paper 
basket.  This  letter,  written  in  a  foreign  language,  was  of  the 
close  of  the  year  1893  or  189 4.  I  believe  it  authentic.  It  was 
worded,  or  approximately  worded,  as  follows  : 

"  Doubts what  to  do  ?  Let  him  show  his  officer's  certifi- 
cate. What  has  he  to  fear  ?  What  can  he  supply  ?  There  is 
no  interest  in  maintaining  relations  with  an  infantry  officer." 

The  simple  common-sense  shows  that  the  author  of  this 
sketch  had  received  propositions  from  an  individual  calling 
himself  an  officer ;  that  he  had  some  doubts  as  to  the  oppor- 
tunity he  was  given  of  entering  into  relations  with  the  latter, 
and  that  it  concerned  someone  who  was  in  the  infantry. 

The  text,  in  a  foreign  language,  was  faithfully  translated  in  the 
commentary  of  du  Paty  de  Clam,  but  he  drew  therefrom  a  most 
unexpected  inference : 

"  A  finds,"  says  du  Paty,  "  that  there  is  no  advantage  in  main- 
taining relations  with  infantry  officers.  He  selects  rather  a  Staff 
Officer,  and  takes  one  attached  to  the  ministry."  This  com- 
mentary enables  one  to  note  the  treacherous  spirit  by  which  du 
Paty  de  Clam  was  actuated. 

Second  document :  This  was  an  authentic  letter  from  (a 
person  whom  we  designate  by  B)  B  to  A,  dating  from  the  early 
part  of  1894;  it  had  been  torn  and  then  put  together,  and  was 
worded  approximately  as  follows,  "  I  desire  to  have  some 
information  upon  a  question  of  recruiting."  This  last  reference, 
continues  Lieutenant-Colonel  Picquart,  is  to  a  matter  which 
was  not  absolutely  confidential.  "  I  shall  ask  Davignon  "  (then 
sub-chief  of  the  second  division),  "  but  he  will  tell  me  nothing. 


APPENDIX.  397 

Therefore  ask  your  friend.      Davignon  must  not  know  of  it, 
because  he  should  not  learn  that  we  are  working  together." 

That  you  may  understand  this  matter,  it  should  be  said  that 
the  foreign  military  attaches  went  about  once  a  week  to  the 
second  division,  where,  at  this  time,  they  were  informed  very 
freely  about  everything  which  was  not  confidential.  The 
officers  of  the  second  division  even  complained  of  working  more 
for  the  foreign  attaches  than  for  the  General  Staff. 

The  commentator  says  :  "  At  the  time  when  B  wrote  to  A, 
Dreyfus  was  in  the  second  division.  Evidently  it  is  he  whom 
B  designates  as  the  friend  of  A."  This  comment  is  absurd.  In 
the  first  place  nothing  has  ever  admitted  the  proof  that  A  had 
relations  with  Dreyfus.  Even  if  we  admit  that  the  bordereau  is 
the  work  of  the  latter,  nothing  in  any  event  indicates  that  this 
friend  was  Dreyfus,  nor  who  it  was  who  furnished  secret  docu- 
ments to  A.  B  dwells  too  lightly  on  that  point,  above  all  when 
he  says,  "  Davignon  must  not  know  of  it  "—that  is  equivalent  to 
saying  that  the  friend  might  be  the  chief  of  division,  might  be 
du  Paty  himself,  who  had  an  understanding  with  A,  might  be 
the  chief  of  the  foreign  section  at  that  particular  time.  All  these 
officers  were  on  excellent  terms  with  A,  and  would  not  have 
hesitated  to  give  him  so  futile  a  piece  of  information  as  the  one 
in  question. 

The  third  document  was  an  authentic  letter  from  B  to  A, 
dated  1894.  It  had  been  torn  and  then  put  together.  B  said 

approximately :  "  I  have  seen  this  blackguard  D .     He  gave 

me  for  you  some  dozen  plans." 

The  commentator  says :  "  It  was  proved  whether  the  plans 
were  in  their  place.  They  were.  It  was  not  proved  whether 
the  plans  of  the  First  Division  were  also.  It  is  allowable  to 
believe  that  Dreyfus  had  taken  those  of  the  First  Division  and 
had  loaned  them  for  the  time  being  to  B,  to  be  forwarded  to  A. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  Dreyfus  was  attached  to  the  First  Division 
in  1893.  He  worked  in  the  room  where  these  plans  were  kept, 
and  since  that  time  the  combination  of  the  locks  had  not  been 
changed." 

This  accusation  is  monstrous  in  the  eyes  of  any  one  knowing 
the  routine  of  the  offices  of  the  General  Staff.  In  the  first 
place  twelve  plans  make  up  a  considerable  package,  and  in  the 


398 


APPENDIX. 


vaults  of  the  First  Division  their  disappearance  must  have  been 
instantly  noticed.  How  can  we  admit  that  Dreyfus,  who  since 
a  year  was  no  longer  attached  to  the  First  Division,  could 
penetrate  there  and  possess  himself  of  such  a  package,  an  act 
which  was  all  the  more  dangerous  in  that  the  vault  in  question 
was  one  of  those  most  often  visited  ?  How  can  we  admit  that, 
always  unperceived,  he  could  have  carried  off  this  package,  when 
at  the  same  time  he  had  in  his  possession  a  quantity  of  other 
documents  also  of  interest  to  A  ? 

It  may  be  remarked  that  nothing  in  the  letter  from  B  to  A 
mentions  the  necessity  of  returning  the  documents,  and  that  is 
why  I  am  inclined  to  believe  that  they  might  have  been  taken 
from  the  Geographical  Service,  where  it  would  have  been 
possible  to  abstract  them  without  too  much  difficulty.  Whereas 
in  the  First  Division  the  thing  is  entirely  impossible. 

As  regards  the  initial  D,  that  suggests  nothing.  Foreign 
powers  do  not  designate  spies  by  the  actual  initial.  I  myself- 
know  a  spy  whose  real  name  is  C  ;  he  introduced  himself  to 
the  foreigners  under  the  name  of  L,  and  by  them  he  is  called  N . 
Finally  the  letter  D  could  not  be  applied  to  a  man  having,  from 
the  point  of  view  ot  espionage,  the  importance  of  Dreyfus. 

All  the  objections  which  I  have  enumerated  I  made  to 
my  superiors,  and  Major  Henry,  and  they  were  not  able 
to  deny  their  value.  They  accounted  for  much,  I  believe, 
in  the  origin  of  the  false  Henry  document,  where  Dreyfus 
was  named  in  full.  I  am  not  able  to  speak  here  except 
as  my  memory  serves  me,  for  there  are  some  points  which 
remain  obscure.  I  earnestly  urge  that  they  be  brought  to 
my  attention  and  that  mention  be  made  of  the  objections 
which  may  arise.  I  investigated  all  these  documents  thoroughly 
two  years  ago,  with  a  complete  understanding  of  the  case,  and  I 
did  not  arrive  at  my  absolute  conviction  of  their  inanity  from  the 
point  of  view  of  Dreyfus's  guilt,  until  I  had  examined  the 
question  from  all  sides. 

If  one  admits  that  these  documents  were  able  to  decide  the 
uncertain  opinion  of  the  judges  of  the  Court  Martial  of  1894, 
one  must  confess,  that  when  the  latter  emerged  from  a  debate 
of  four  days,  which  had  greatly  disturbed  them,  that  they  were 
searching  for  a  clear  >ad  intelligible  idea  upon  which  to  rely 


APPENDIX.  399 

after  the  convinced  discussions  of  the  experts,  and  that  they 
discovered  this  in  the  notes  upon  the  dossier,  whose  origin  was 
new,  and  in  which  they  placed  complete  trust. 

Then  as  they  may  not  have  been  able  to  take  account  of  the 
value  of  the  documents  which  might  be  new  for  them,  they 
iccepted  the  explanations  given  them  without  suspecting  the 
trap  which  their  loyalty  prevented  them  from  perceiving.  And 

rther  on,  when  at  the  end  of  August,  1896,  the  investigation 
upon  Esterhazy  and  the  secret  dossier  had  convinced  them  ot 
the  innocence  of  Dreyfus,  I  made  a  report  to  General  de 
Boisdeffre,  who  authorised  me  to  explain  these  matters  to 

Colonel  X ;  he,  however,  told  me  to  take  into  account  a 

forged  document  of  which  I  will  speak  later  on,  which  had  come 
in  at  the  commencement  of  September,  ^96,  to  the  Minister  of 
Colonies.  He  asked  me  also  to  weigh  the  evidence  of  the 
forged  Henry  document,  but  he  never  brought  forward  any 
other  objections.  In  fine,  he  was  absolutely  opposed  to  revision 
and  to  proceedings  against  Esterhazy,  without  being  convinced 
of  the  absolute  guilt  of  Dreyfus. 

I  said  as  much  to  General  Billot,  who  for  some  time  believed 
in  the  innocence  of  Dreyfus,  and  whose  belief  in  his  guilt  was 
founded  on  the  forged  Henry  document.  He  had  always  be- 
lieved in  the  guilt  of  Esterhazy  during  the  time  that  I  was 
attached  to  the  Ministry.  So  far  as  General  Gonse,  with  whom 
I  was  able  to  speak  freely,  is  concerned,  I  think  I  may 
enter  upon  some  details.  When,  by  order  of  General  de 
Boisdeffre,  I  went  on  September  3rd,  1896,10  report  to  General 
Gonse  the  report  of  my  enquiry  on  the  subject  of  Esterhazy 
and  Dreyfus,  the  General  listened  to  my  reasons  and  did  not 
dispute  them.  He  merely  made  a  face  and  said  to  me,  "  Well, 
then,  we  have  been  mistaken  !  "  Then  he  instructed  me  not  to 
concern  myself  with  this  matter.  The  letter  of  September, 
1896,  shows  clearly  that  he  brought  forward  no  affirmation 
adverse  to  mine.  At  the  time  of  his  return  to  Paris  on 
September  i^th,  he  was  still  more  explicit.  I  think  I  can 
repeat  word  for  word  the  conversation  I  had  with  him  on  this 
subject,  and  which  will  never  be  effaced  from  my  memory. 

The  General. — What  business  is  it  of  yours  if  this  Jew  is  on 
the  He  du  Diable  ? 


400  APPENDIX. 

R. — But  if  he  is  innocent  ? 

G. — How  do  you  expect  to  go  all  over  this  trial  again  ?  It 
would  be  the  most  shocking  story.  General  Mercier  and 
General  Saussier  are  both  tangled  up  in  it. 

R. — But,  General,  he  is  innocent,  and  that  should  be  enough 
to  revise  the  case.  But,  from  another  point  of  view,  you  know 
that  his  family  are  at  work.  They  are  searching  everywhere 
for  the  true  culprit,  and  if  they  find  him,  what  will  be  our 
position  ? 

G. — If  you  say  nothing,  no  one  will  ever  know. 

R.  — General,  what  you  say  is  contemptible.  I  do  not  know 
what  I  shall  do,  but  in  any  event  I  shall  not  allow  this  secret  to 
be  buried  with  me.  And  I  left  him  instantly.  From  that 
moment  I  understood  clearly  the  situation. 

Once  again  General  Gonse  spoke  to  me  of  the  guilt  of  Dreyfus 
apropos  of  the  forged  Henry  document.  Several  days  before 
General  de  Boisdeffre  and  General  Gonse  asked  me  if  the 
Minister  had  made  any  special  communication  to  me.  Finally, 
one  morning,  the  Minister  told  me  that  he  had  a  letter  of  B 
showing  the  guilt  of  Dreyfus.  As  I  went  out  I  met  General 
Gonse,  who  said  to  me :  "  Well,  are  you  convinced  ? "  I 
replied,  "  Not  at  all,"  and  I  told  him  that  it  was  a  forged 
document,  to  which  he  replied :  "  When  a  minister  tells  me 
something  I  always  believe  it." 

In  brief,  my  superiors  never  disputed  openly  the  innocence 
of  Dreyfus ;  and  they  never  brought  forward  but  that  one 
empty  proof  of  his  guilt — the  alleged  avowals.  For  four 
months  I  was  engaged  upon  an  inquiry  upon  Esterhazy 
without  any  incident  arising  to  interfere  with  my  investi- 
gation. But  from  the  day  when  I  reported  to  General 
de  Boisdeffre  that  Esterhazy  was  the  author  of  the  bordereau, 
there  arose  a  series  of  plots  against  Dreyfus  and  myself, 
of  which  I  am  the  victim  to  this  very  hour;  and  their 
principal  authors,  if  not  their  actual  instigators,  I  know,  can 
have  been  only  Du  Paty  de  Clam  and  Henry — that  is  to  say, 
the  two  principal  representatives  for  putting  in  motion  the  Dreyfus 
affair.  And  this,  too,  to  my  way  of  thinking,  is  one  of  the 
proofs  of  the  emptiness  of  the  accusations  against  Dreyfus. 
If,  indeed,  proofs  of  his  guilt  had  been  available,  it  would 


APPENDIX.  401 

not  have  been  necessary  to  reinforce  them  by  fraudulent 
means,  nor  to  attack  his  defenders.  Moreover,  the  manoeuvres 
of  Du  Patyde  Clam  and  Henry  commenced  from  the  very  out- 
set of  the  Dreyfus  affair.  We  note  that  the  first  frauds  were 
insignificant,  but  that  they  grew  little  by  little  to  end  by  arriv- 
ing at  actual  forged  documents.  The  first  manoeuvre  was  D  u 
Paty  de  Clam's  interruption  while  Dreyfus  was  writing.  Du 
Paty  de  Clam  felt  it  necessary  that  Dreyfus  should  seem 
disturbed  while  he  dictated  the  bordereau  to  him.  As  he  was 
not  disturbed  Du  Paty  de  Clam  addressed  this  question  to 
him, "  What  is  the  matter  with  you  ?  You  are  trembling  !  "  And 
this  was  intended  to  take  unawares  the  good  faith  of  the  two 
witnesses— Messieurs  Cochefert  and  Gribelin.  Bad  faith  is 
here  evident  to  any  one  who  was  accustomed  to  matters  of  this 
kind.  For  any  one  who  is  posted  on  matters  of  espionage  the 
proof  that  the  weakness  of  this  dossier  was  well  known,  is  that  it 
is  much  talked  of,  but  not  shown,  and  that  General  de  Bois- 
deffre  never  submitted  to  the  minister  in  1889  the  documents  of 
which  it  was  composed.  Moreover,  the  General  told  me  at 
that  time,  while  the  dossier  was  still  there,  that  no  pains  had 
been  spared  during  the  trial  to  influence  the  judges.  Colonel 
Sandherr  told  him  that  he  had  said  to  one  of  the  Judges  : 
"I  give  you  my  guarantee  that  he  is  guilty."  On  the  other 
hand,  Captain  Gallet,  one  of  the  judges,  was  closely  associ- 
ated at  this  time  with  Colonel  Henry,  who  did  not  fail  to 
post  him  on  his  understanding  of  the  matter.  That  is  how  the 
thing  happened.  I  was  present  at  all  the  Session,  seated  behind 
the  Judges.  It  was  seen  that  the  outlook  of  the  case  was 
somewhat  uncertain,  and  it  was  resolved  to  make  a  bold  stroke. 
Henry  said  to  me  :  "  As  you  are  seated  behind  Gallet,  tell 
him  to  have  me  recalled  to  demand  further  information 
from  me."  As  I  refused  to  carry  out  this  commission,  Colonel 
Henry  became  angry,  and  made  the  communication  himself 
during  the  adjournment  of  the  trial.  Captain  Gallet  brought 
up  the  question  when  the  session  was  resumed,  and  Henry  in 
making  his  deposition  said :  "  We  had  it  from  an  honourable 
person  that  an  officer  of  the  Second  Division  has  betrayed  infor- 
mation, and  that  officer  is  there,"  he  added,  pointing  to  Dreyfus. 
It  was  possible  to  surmise  that  the  person  in  question  had 

2    D 


4O2  APPENDIX. 

denounced  Dreyfus,  but  that  was  not  so.  This  person,  a 
foreign  spendthrift,  to  whom  I  had  paid  1,200  francs  for  this 
service,  had  said  to  Henry  that  the  foreign  military  attaches 
had  friends  in  the  Second  Division  from  whom  they  got 
information,  and  this  advice  agrees  entirely  with  the  actual 
facts;  for  the  foreign  military  attaches  were  received  at  the 
Second  Military  Division  in  the  most  friendly  fashion,  and 
there  given  all  information  which  it  was  possible  to  accord 
to  them. 

But  Dreyfus  was  attached  to  the  Second  Division  simply  as 
an  officer  of  probation. 

The  alleged  admission  to  Captain  Lebrun-Renault  makes  up 
in  the  same  way  a  manoeuvre,  the  consequences  of  which  have 
been  recently  felt.  From  the  time  of  the  deportation 
of  Dreyfus  to  the  He  du  Diable,  what  it  is  proper  to  call 
"  plots  "  increased.  It  was  then  that  the  forged  Henry  docu- 
ment was  discovered  at  the  Ministry  of  Colonies  on  the 
25th  September,  1887.  This  forged  document  was  a 
letter  addressed  to  Dreyfus,  which,  as  was  the  case  with  all 
the  correspondence  particularly  personal,  passed  first  through 
the  hands  of  the  Minister  of  Colonies,  where  it  was  examined. 
I  myself  saw  it,  the  signature  was  that  of  one  named  Veyler. 
He  told  Dreyfus  that  his  daughter  was  being  married.  This 
letter  was  written  in  strange  characters  resembling  a  drawing 
rather  than  writing  and  made  to  attract  the  eye.  Although  for 
more  than  a  year  I  had  read  all  the  correspondence  addressed  to 
Dreyfus,  I  had  never  seen  either  this  handwriting  or  this  signa- 
ture. But  what  was  more  serious,  between  the  lines  were  written 
these  words  with  sympathetic  ink,  sufficiently  visible,  however,  for 
one  to  read  them  almost  entirely:  "  We  do  not  understand  your 
communication,  specify  where  are  the  vaults  containing  the — 
This  letter,  which  was  a  most  rude  forgery,  was  intended  to 
start  the  idea  of  a  counter  plot  launched  by  the  friends  of 
Dreyfus,  with  the  intention  of  substituting  a  dummy.  I  gave  it 
to  Monsieur  Bertillon,  who  employed  himself  in  having  made 
by  one  of  his  employes  an  astonishingly  accurate  facsimile.  As 
I  looked  at  it  against  the  light  I  noticed  that  the  grain  of  the 
paper  was  identical  with  that  of  the  original.  M.  Bertillon  said 
to  me  with  a  smile — "  We  have  thought  of  everything."  The 


APPENDIX.  403 

facsimile  was  sent  to  the  He  du  Diable  in  order  to  see  what 
Dreyfus  would  do  when  he  received  it. 

This  forged  document  constitutes  the  serious  fact  of  which  I 
spoke  to  General  Gonse  in  July,  1896. 

Influenced  by  the  chain  of  evidence,  I  thought  for  a  moment 
that  this  document  came  really  from  the  friends  of  Dreyfus, 
who,  in  order  to  save  him,  had  had  recourse  to  the  most  clumsy 
means.  However,  upon  reflection,  it  did  not  take  me  long  to 
become  convinced  of  the  character  of  this  document,  and  I 
believe  that  it  was  Du  Paty  de  Clam  who  was  its  author,  since 
it  was  to  his  interest  at  that  moment  to  render  my  work  vain. 

The  idea  of  the  dummy  was  one  of  those  which  Du  Paty  de 
Clam  mentioned  most  frequently.  At  any  rate,  at  this  time 
Hemy  was  on  leave  and  could  not  intervene. 

After  this  document,  the  false  news  reported  in  the  press, 
particularly  the  article  in  the  Eclair  of  September  isth,  which 
originated  certainly  with  Du  Paty  de  Clam,  for  in  it  are  entire 
phrases  which  are  word  for  word  similar  to  those  which  he 
uttered  before  me. 

Finally  the  forged  Henry  document,  which  is  too  well  known 
for  me  to  emphasize  it  further,  not  to  mention  the  explanation 
recently  given  by  Monsieur  Berthulus,  Juge  d'Instruction. 

What  it  is  necessary  to  remember  of  all  this  is  that  the  guilt 
of  Dreyfus  was  so  uncertain  that  those  in  favour  of  his  con- 
demnation believed  it  necessary  to  reinforce  it  by  forged 
documents,  or  to  attack  by  underhand  methods  the  methods 
of  the  prisoner. 

In  fine,  Dreyfus  was  only  arrested  because  it  was  unjustly 
believed  that  the  bordereau  was  the  work  of  an  officer  of  the 
General  Staff.  Once  arrested,  nothing  was  found  against  him, 
but  the  accusation  of  the  police  reports  trumped  up  against 
him  for  the  case,  and  which  could  not  hold  water  before  the 
Court  Martial  of  1894. 

The  reason  for  attributing  the  bordereau  to  Dreyfus  was  the 
similarity  of  handwriting. 

It  has  never  been  possible  to  discover  the  motive  which  would 
have  led  him  to  commit  such  a  crime  resulting  in  inevitable 
conviction. 

The  Minister  communicated  to  the  judges  in  the  Council 


404  APPENDIX. 

Chamber  the  secret  dossier  composed  of  documents  inapplicable 
to  Dreyfus,  and  which  could  not  be  brought  up  against  him 
unless  one  admitted  the  commentaries  which  accompanied  the 
dossier,  they  having  been  compiled  by  Du  Paty  de  Clam.  The 
dossier  was  never  submitted  to  the  examination  of  the  counsel 
for  the  defence.  Dreyfus  once  convicted,  attempts  were  made 
to  elaborate  this  dossier,  but  so  far  without  success.  In  the 
autumn  of  1896,  when  the  inquiry  upon  Esterhazy  destroyed  the 
grounds  for  attributing  the  bordereau  to  Dreyfus  and  broke 
down  absolutely  the  accusation  made  against  him,  then  it  was 
that  the  start  was  made  with  the  system  of  the  forged  documents. 

At  the  time  when  I  left  the  Ministry,  in  1896,  there  were  no 
other  documents  relating  to  Dreyfus  besides  those  enumerated 
in  the  present  communication.  I  demand,  that  if  other  docu- 
ments have  come  to  light  since  then,  that  I  be  placed  in  a 
position  to  report  upon  them.  I  demand  also  that  all  objec- 
tions which  may  be  applied  to  this  Report  shall  be  fully  worked 
out,  and  that  I  be  invited  to  furnish  all  such  supplementary  ex- 
planations as  are  necessary  to  bring  the  Dreyfus  affair  into  the 
full  light  of  day. 

In  conclusion,  Monsieur  the  Keeper  of  the  Seals,  allow  me 
to  express  my  gratitude.  You  have  given  me  the  opportunity  of 
doing  what  I  have  wished  to  do  for  two  years — to  quieten  my 
conscience  by  telling  the  entire  truth  to  one  who  is  the  supreme 
arbiter  of  justice,  and  in  consequence  one  of  the  guardians  of 
this  country's  honour.  I  beg  at  the  same  time  that  you  will 
accept  the  assurance  of  my  deep  respect. 

(Signed)     PlCQUART. 


APPENDIX.  405 


THE  COMMUNICATION  OF  SECRET  DOCUMENTS 
TO  THE  COURT-MARTIAL  OF  1894. 

(Letter  from   Lieutenant- Colonel   Picquart    to   the 
Keeper  of  the  Seals,  September  15,  1898.) 

"  MONSIEUR  THE  KEEPER  OF  THE  SEALS, 

"  I  have  the  honour  to  send  you  the  supplementary  in- 
formation which  you  asked  me  to  furnish  on  the  subject  of  the 
communication  of  the  secret  documents  to  the  judges  of  the 
Court  Martial  which  condemned  Dreyfus  in  1894. 

"This  communication  was  well  known  to  all  the  officers 
intimately  connected  with  the  Dreyfus  affair.  I  spoke  of  it  at 
the  time  with  General  Mercier  and  General  de  Boisdeffre  and 
Du  Paty  de  Clam.  And  later,  when  I  assumed  direction  of  the 
Service  of  Information,  I  spoke  of  it  to  General  Gonse  and 
Colonel  Sandherr  and  Major  Henry  and  to  Gribelin,  the 
Keeper  of  the  Archives.  Finally  Vallecalle,  the  recorder  of  the 
first  Court- Martial,  spoke  of  it  to  me  during  the  Dreyfus 
enquiry  in  these  words : 

" '  Was  it  not  you  who  brought  the  secret  dossier  to  Colonel 
Morel  ? ' 

"  '  At  the  same  time  as  I  myself  was  not  charged  to  make  the 
delivery,  I  am  unable  to  inform  you  except  by  hearsay  and  by 
what  I  have  seen  myself;  albeit  these  details  are  true  as  a 
whole,  they  should  nevertheless  be  checked.' 

"  '  How  was  the  delivery  made  ? ' 

" '  Under  sealed  enclosure  to  the  president  of  the  Court 
Martial,  there  was  another  enclosure  containing — first,  the  four 
documents  which  I  have  specified  in  my  memoirs  \  second,  the 
commentary  written  by  Du  Paty  de  Clam  on  this  matter. 
There  is  no  doubt  whatever  about  that.' 

"When  Colonel  Sandherr  spoke  to  me  of  this  dossier  in 
July,  1895, he  said:  'The  small  dossier  which  was  delivered  to 
the  Judges  of  the  Court  Martial  is  in  the  iron  closet.'  When 
I  asked  Gribelin  for  it,  I  said  to  him :  '  Give  me  the  dossier 


406 


APPENDIX. 


which  was  delivered  to  the  Judges  of  the  Court  Martial  and 
which  is  in  Major  Henry's  closet.'  He  gave  it  to  me  immedi- 
ately, and  in  a  particular  envelope  the  four  documents  and  the 
Commentary.  When  I  showed  this  dossier  to  General  de 
Boisdeffre,  he  recognised  it  perfectly  and  asked  why  it  had  not 
been  burned  as  before  agreed.  General  Gonse  also  saw  it  in 
my  possession,  and  we  spoke  of  it  as  the  dossier  delivered  to  the 
judges  in  the  council  chamber. 

"  2nd. — By  whom  was  the  delivery  made  ?  I  am  not  entirely 
positive  of  the  person  who  carried  the  dossier  to  the  President 
of  the  Court-Martial.  It  might  have  been  myself;  it  might 
have  been  Du  Paty  de  Clam.  This  uncertainty  may  seem 
curious,  but  is  nevertheless  natural.  I  had  severel  deliveries  to 
make  at  the  time,  and  I  was  not  familiar  with  the  exact  appear- 
ance of  the  dossier  in  question. 

"  3rd. — Where  was  the  delivery  made  ?  At  the  Court  Martial 
at  Paris,  and  it  was  opened  in  the  council  chamber.  At  what 
time  ?  Assuredly  after  the  close  of  the  session.  Because  in 
reporting  the  general  impression  of  the  deliberation  to  the 
Minister,  I  said  to  him  that  this  impression  was  not  unfavourable 
to  the  accused,  but  that  at  the  time  I  was  speaking  the  judges 
should  be  determined  by  the  secret  dossier.  He  did  not  contra- 
dict this  reference,  and  moreover  this  secret  dossier  was  always 
a  clearly- understood  thing  at  the  Ministry.  My  declaration 
might  be  confirmed  by  Generals  Mercier,  de  Boisdeffre  and 
Gonse;  Lieutenant-Colonel  Du  Paty  de  Clam,  Gribelin,  the 
keeper  of  the  Archives,  and  the  recorder,  Vallecalle. 

"Such,  Monsieur  the  Keeper  of  the  Seals,  are  the  supple- 
mentary explanations  which  I  had  to  offer  you.  I  take  the 
liberty  of  insisting  in  the  same  urgent  manner  that  I  should  be 
allowed  to  furnish  details  which  it  is  difficult  to  supply  in 
writing." 


LONDON : 
PRINTED   BY  WILLIAM   CLOWES  AND   SONS,    LIMITED, 

STAMFORD   STREET    AND   CHARING   CROSS. 


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